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Manila Bulletin devider Business devider Luzon grid power supply tumbles into 'red alert'

Luzon grid power supply tumbles into 'red alert'

Published Nov 28, 2022 10:02 am

Consumers in Luzon grid are teetering into brownout predicaments on this week’s first day of work as system operator National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) raised "red alert" warning or a condition of severely strained power reserves due to simultaneous outages of power plants.

This is anticipated as a repeat of the sporadic brownouts that happened on Sunday, Nov. 27, morning between 8:14 to 9:42am, which was also triggered by forced outages of power plants. Areas afflicted with electricity service interruptions covered the franchise area of Manila Electric Company (Meralco), including some areas in Metro Manila.

For the Monday, Nov. 28), red alert warning, NGCP indicated that probable outages or extremely deficient reserves will be at around 5:00-6:00pm while "yellow alert" status in the grid was advised from 10:00am to 5:00pm and 6:00pm to 9:00pm.

“Six power plants are on forced outages, while three others are running on de-rated capacities, for a total of 2,648 megawatts unavailable to the grid,” NGCP emphasized.

The power facilities reported to have suffered unscheduled shutdowns had been: the 300MW Unit 2 Calaca coal plant; 316MW Unit 1 of GNPower Mariveles coal plant; 335MW unit 3 of the Masinloc coal plant; 256MW Module 20 of the Santa Rita gas plant; 455MW San Buenaventura coal plant; and 647MW Unit 1 Sual coal-fired power plant.

The generating plants with de-rated capacities had been: unit 1 of the Masinloc coal-fired plant of which generation had been down to 250MW (from 300MW); unit 2 of Masinloc plant’s generation had been pared to 270MW (from 300MW); and the Magat hydropower facility’s capacity had been reduced to 160MW from 360MW.

For the power plants that had been on outages, the capacity loss in the system summed up to 2,309MW; and that was compounded by the de-rated generation of the other plants which added unavailable capacity of 339MW.

As of 9:00am on Monday (November 28), available power supply for Luzon grid stood at 10,706MW; while peak demand within the day expected to reach 10,246 megawatts.

Industry stakeholders highlighted that the recurring red alert conditions in the power system could be a harbinger of things to come – especially for Luzon grid, which may be unable to avoid blackout predicaments in the high-demand months of summer.

The Department of Energy (DOE) has been exploring various capacity additions that the power system can depend on -including the entry of imported liquefied natural gas (LNG) to replace fuel being lifted in the depleting Malampaya field, but even that proposed solution is not cast in stone yet.

Related Tags

#LUZONGRID #REDALERT #BROWNOUTS #NGCP #MERALCO #PLANTOUTAGES #CAPACITYDERATING
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