However, just as traffic congestion is a dubious indicator of economic vitality, our chronic energy shortage is a problem that requires solutions rather than salutations. The Department of Energy and Energy Regulatory Commission have sternly demanded that power producers explain the "planned and unplanned plant shutdowns" that resulted in short electricity supply at a time when demand was highest. The reason that the energy crunch is so difficult to solve is that it presents policymakers and stakeholders with a paradox: the manifestation of the problem of insufficient electricity supply is immediate, but the only rational solution to it, creating more electricity, cannot be immediately applied. We have a few ideas about how more investment in the energy sector might be encouraged to accomplish that. Certainly, we should prefer clean, sustainable sources of energy, but the availability of energy itself, and not its type, should be the priority.

Source: Manila Times June 08, 2021 14:07 UTC