How Boracay Gets Its Electricity: One Line, a Submarine Cable and a Late Project

Boracay has no local power plants, and the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) said in May 2025 that electricity reaches the island by submarine cable from the mainland³. In 2018 NGCP described the supply as “a single 69kV line” serving the island¹. The Department of Energy (DOE) described the same arrangement in September 2025: Boracay and Caticlan draw power through a 69 kV overhead line and a submarine cable from the Nabas substation⁴.

Two organizations run the chain. The Aklan Electric Cooperative (AKELCO) is the local distributor³. NGCP operates transmission, and in November 2025 it took over the Caticlan-Unidos 69 kV line from AKELCO after the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) reclassified it as a transmission asset a year earlier⁷. The ERC order reported in October 2025 also covers the Avon-Caticlan 69 kV line, the Caticlan Cable Terminal Station and the Caticlan-Boracay submarine cable⁶.

The 2022 case for a second route was capacity. NGCP said the existing 69 kV submarine cable and overhead line “is no longer adequate to support load growth”, with demand projected at 102 MW by 2030 and 175 MW by 2040².

The Nabas-Caticlan-Boracay project adds a 138 kV line from Nabas to Caticlan, a 138 kV submarine cable from Caticlan to Boracay, an underground 69 kV line on the island, and upgraded substations¹. It was announced as one project with one finish date, and the date has moved more than once.

The reasons the ERC accepted for the extension were site workability, right-of-way acquisition and procurement, among other construction challenges⁶. In April 2026 the underground cable was targeted for June and the whole project for August 2026⁹. The project is expected to serve over 155,000 residential, 13,000 commercial and 27 industrial customers⁹.

Sources disagree The reported cost differs by report: PHP 4.27 billion applied for in 2018¹, PHP 5.48 billion in 2022², PHP 4.23 billion in the October 2025 ERC extension report⁶ and PHP 5.27 billion in April 2026⁹. Whether the figures count the same scope is not stated. For a traveller the cost does not matter; the completion date does.

Is it finished?

Not confirmed. The last status in the sources used here is April 2026, when the project was 93.161 percent complete, and NGCP again promised August 2026 in a Senate briefing on 28 May 2026 as reported by the Daily Tribune⁹¹⁵. No source used here reports the 138 kV cable energized or the project completed by the 31 August 2026 deadline. Until one does, plan around the existing 69 kV supply.

The old supply path failed twice in 2025, for different reasons. In May a broken cut-off jumper wire on the NGCP line at Nabas tripped the 69 kV Nabas-Unidos-Caticlan line, and Boracay lost power for at least 18 hours³. In September the line tripped again, and AKELCO traced the fault to arcing in underground 69 kV cables near the Caticlan Airport arrival area, caused by moisture intrusion and leakage⁴. An 800-meter temporary overhead bypass along the airport’s beachside perimeter restored supply⁴⁵.

The bypass then had its own problems. NGCP named water-wave splash and salt-spray corrosion as the main cause of its recent failures and built an alternative bypass further from the shore, due to be energized in December 2025⁷. When NGCP rehabilitated the line in early 2026 it found that about 88 percent of the identified defects were corrosion-related, from prolonged exposure to marine conditions⁸. The full dated list is in the outage timeline.

The 2026 story is shortage and price more than cable faults. At a Senate briefing on 28 May 2026, officials were reported to describe a capacity shortage on Panay of 87 MW, tied to a forced outage of a 150 MW unit¹⁵. On 8 July 2026 the Visayas grid went on red alert from 3 p.m. to 9 p.m., with 2,397 MW available against a 2,492 MW peak¹³. On 26 August 2026 the grid operator scheduled rotating brownouts from 1 p.m. to 11 p.m. with 293 MW short of demand, and AKELCO was among the cooperatives listed¹⁴. Neither GMA report says that Boracay itself lost power on those days.

AKELCO’s own site reports the cost side. At a stakeholders’ conference in July 2026 the cooperative said the residential rate would have reached PHP 15.6756 per kWh, PHP 3.5695 more than in June, without regulatory intervention. It put the cause down to higher Visayas demand, generating plants out of service and repeated Yellow and Red Alert declarations, and said the ERC had approved staggered recovery over several billing cycles¹¹.

For context, GMA reported in June 2026 that MORE Power in Iloilo City raised its residential rate by PHP 2 to PHP 13.87 per kWh, and Negros Power in Bacolod by PHP 2.46 to PHP 13.84 per kWh, both citing higher spot-market purchases¹². That report does not mention AKELCO, and AKELCO’s PHP 15.6756 is a no-intervention figure, so the numbers are not like for like. Short-stay visitors pay for electricity inside their room rate or resort charges; the rate matters most to anyone renting by the month.

No source used here gives an independent speed test for Boracay. What exists is dated and mixed. In August 2022 the secretary of the Department of Information and Communications Technology said on a visit that “Internet access is slow” on the island and planned a “WiFi For All” rollout, without giving speeds¹⁷. Converge launched fiber on Boracay in May 2023, and its chief executive said its offering was “much better than our competitors here”, a company claim¹⁶. Globe said in a release reported in May 2025 that it had more than 30 outdoor 5G sites on the island, also a company claim¹⁹. The National Telecommunications Commission registered Starlink in the Philippines in May 2022, with advertised speeds of 100 to 200 Mbps; the report is national and says nothing about Boracay¹⁸.

nomads.com’s own average for Boracay is 10 Mbps, covered with the other nomad figures in Working remotely from Boracay. SIM and eSIM rules for visitors are in SIM cards and eSIMs for Boracay.