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Manila Bulletin devider Business devider San Gabriel power plant back to operation after 5-month shutdown

San Gabriel power plant back to operation after 5-month shutdown

Published Feb 16, 2021 04:02 pm

The 414-megawatt San Gabriel gas-fired power plant of First Gen Corporation has been synchronized back to the grid this week, following a five-month shutdown due to the technical glitch it suffered from since five months ago.

In a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE), the Lopez firm advised on “the completion of repairs to the generator” of the power facility, which was found to be damaged following a ‘trip’ in September last year.

Given that development, First Gen indicated “the plant was successfully restarted and placed online on Monday (February 15), as part of planned ongoing recommissioning activities.”

The generation company emphasized “the recommissioning activities are scheduled to last for up to 3 days and are necessary to confirm that the San Gabriel plant is performing as designed, before it resumes normal commercial operations.”

The gas-fired power fleet has an existing power supply agreement with Manila Electric Company (Meralco); and that is for six-year duration or until year 2024.

As previously established, there was an “electrical fault in the generator” of the power plant that then triggered the tripping -- and it required six months of repair before the facility could get back on-line.

The San Gabriel power plant is one of the four gas-fed electric generating assets of the Lopez group feeding on the requirements of the interconnected Luzon and Visayas grids. The company’s other gas plants are the 1,000MW Santa Rita, 500MW San Lorenzo and 97MW Avion plants.

The future of gas-fired power plants in the country is being assured by the Lopez group via its planned liquefied natural gas (LNG) import facility – starting with a floating storage regasification unit (FSRU) that is targeted on stream by the third quarter of 2022; while the longer term investment plan calls for the installation of onshore LNG terminal.

Gas-fired power capacities are seen crucial in the Philippine energy mix, especially in the ‘energy transition agenda’ laid down by the Department of Energy (DOE) – because it’s only gas for now that can provide fix to the intermittency of some renewable energy (RE) technologies. That is until battery storage reaches commercial maturity and price point that will lead to competitive rates for consumers.

It has to be noted that the country is prepping for massive RE installations starting this year, because of the full implementation of the DOE-underpinned Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS) that shall provide alternative market to RE projects.

Related Tags

First Gen Corporation PSE San Gabriel power plant DOE
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