WESM electricity prices rise
In the midst of a pandemic that the government is struggling to fully address efficiently, Filipino consumers are being slapped with added burdens of persistent rotating brownouts that may last until June 7 this year, plus unwarranted spikes in electricity prices that surged to as high as P37 per kilowatt hour (kWh) at the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM) on Tuesday (June 1).
New wave of power interruptions had tormented electricity consumers in Luzon grid again on Tuesday, as power reserves had crashed to negative levels because of worsening cases of power plant outages, hence, resulting in deficient power being supplied to the system.
Giant power utility Manila Electric Company (Meralco) announced that the rotating brownouts started at 1:05pm and the areas affected had been: parts of Cavite, Batangas, Laguna, Quezon, Rizal and a wider swath of Metro Manila that included the capital city of Manila, Quezon City, Caloocan, Valenzuela, Las Pinas, Paranaque, Marikina, Makati, Pasig, Pasay and Taguig.
Outside of Meralco franchise area, the other provinces distressed with rotating brownouts had been: Pampanga, Pangasinan, La Union, Nueva Ecija, Sorsogon, Bataan, Albay, Isabela, Ilocos Norte and Camarines Sur.
In a briefing with reporters, National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) Spokesperson Cynthia Perez-Alabanza said “we foresee sustained red alert status for the next few days until Monday (June 7), because of thinning power supply.”
Based on the company’s assessment, the biggest power grid of Luzon which serves the country’s main economic center, will have deficient reserves on June 2, 3, 4 and 7; but there will be a breather over the weekend because of comparatively depressed electricity consumption.
“We will have a short break for the weekend because demand is low, but coming Monday (June 7), we will see another red alert status,” she noted.
A ‘red alert condition’ in the power grid entails that power reserves to efficiently run the power system is insufficient, hence, any added pressure on supply, like more power plant outages, could result in brownouts.
According to Meralco Vice President Lawrence S. Fernandez, more circuits had to be dropped or more areas had to be covered by the rotating brownouts because the deficiency allocated to the utility firm had been at heftier 458 megawatts versus 163MW on Monday.
The utility firm described the brownout conditions to have worsened, because on Monday, it was just for two hours of rotating power interruptions, but for Tuesday (June1), the overall assessment was for it to be rolling for 11 hours.
Joe Zaldarriaga, vice president and head of corporate communication of Meralco, expounded “manual load dropping or brownout schedules for Meralco customers commenced due to insufficient operating reserve brought about by the plant outages.”
Isidro Cacho, chief of Corporate Strategy and Communication of the Independent Electricity Market Operator of the Philippines (IEMOP), has confirmed that prices in the WESM had drastically climbed to as high as P37 per kWh, hence, market intervention had to be enforced as of 11:00am trading interval on Tuesday at the spot market.
“That P37/kWh price will be replaced with administered price because of generation deficiency. But we still enforce the secondary price cap of P6.245 per kWh, so in that situation, the secondary price cap may apply,” Cacho explained.
As stated by Reynaldo Abadilla, head of NGCP Luzon System Operations, based on their projections, supply situation in the grid will likely improve on Tuesday (June 8), if the expected power plants coming back on-line will materialize.
“On a daily basis, we closely coordinate with the power plants on the situation if they could come in earlier or it might extend, but that’s the best scenario we have so far,” he stressed.
Raul Seludo, assistant vice president and head of NGCP system operations, added that in their planning, “we’re anticipating that the power generators, like in vehicles, we can estimate – that things can go fast or the repairs may take longer. So our basis is what we see as a scenario in the next seven days.”
As of Tuesday, the power plants on forced outages had been: unit 2 of the Sual coal-fired power plant; unit 2 of the Calaca coal plant; unit 1 of GNPower Mariveles coal-fired power facility; units 1 and 2 of Malaya thermal plant; and generating unit 7 of the Makiling-Banahaw geothermal plant.
The San Roque hydro power plant, for three of its generating units, had been on maintenance shutdown; while Blocks A and B of the Ilijan gas plant had de-rated generation capacity; along with that of Southwest Luzon Power Generation Corporation coal-fired plant.