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Manila Bulletin devider Philippines devider National devider 'Red alert' season? DOE tells ERC to look into power plant outages in Luzon

'Red alert' season? DOE tells ERC to look into power plant outages in Luzon

Published Jun 1, 2021 08:33 pm

The Department of Energy (DOE) wants the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) to look into the various power plant outages that has caused the Luzon grid to slip in an out of "red alert" status.

(Photo by Hey Porter / Unsplash)

"Being a performance issue, the DOE likewise calls on the ERC to look into these outages and exercise its regulatory functions as the energy family continues to work together to ensure the continuity of power services during these challenging times," the department said in a statement Tuesday, June 1.

The Luzon power grid is operated by the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP), a privately-owned corporation.

On Tuesday, the DOE convened with representatives of the NGCP and GNPower Mariveles Energy Center (GMEC) to tackle the unplanned outage of GMEC Coal-Fired Power Plant Unit 2, which took place at 3:56 a.m.

GMEC is one of a handful of power plants that are currently offline, either due to planned (scheduled) or unplanned outages.

This has resulted to the Luzon grid being placed on red alert from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday. A second red alert window will last from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m.

On Monday, May 31, dwindling power reserves in the grid also triggered red alert status from 2 p.m. to 3 p.m.

As of 6 p.m. Tuesday, the NGCP reported an actual peak demand of 11,312 megawatts (MW). The total available capacity was projected to be 11,322 MW as of 1 p.m.--just barely enough to cover the power demand from the grid.

On Monday, the projected available capacity (11,729 MW) managed to exceed the projected system peak demand (11,514 MW), although again, not by much.

"In order to maintain a balanced system, NGCP may implement Manual Load Dropping (MLD) in parts of Luzon today to maintain the integrity of the power system," the DOE said Tuesday.

In layman's terms, an MLD refers to a power interruption.

The total unplanned or forced outages among power plants in the Luzon grid Tuesday equated to a whopping 1,579 MW in lost reserves. The capacity loss resulting from outages stood at 1,285 MW on Monday.

"The DOE continues to monitor the power situation and will submit the additional pieces of information for the consumers and the enforcement agencies, including , the Philippine Competition Commission and the Department of Justice, considering its long term strategy of addressing the power supply and demand situation during the summer season," the department said.

"It continues to remind the distribution utilities and the system operator of its contracting obligations to address the needed capacity increases for a reliable power system for its consumers," the DOE added.

Related Tags

outage NGCP Power interruption Luzon grid 60121 DOE red alert
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