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Manila Bulletin devider Business devider ERC not amenable on removing caps for plant shutdowns

ERC not amenable on removing caps for plant shutdowns

Published Apr 1, 2024 06:10 am

At A Glance

  • The plea for removal or amendments in the caps of allowable power plant outages was lodged by the Philippine Independent Power Producers Association Inc. (PIPPA).
  • The ERC is eyeing to enforce new plant outage limits based on reasonable standards underpinned by credible data - and that shall be partly anchored on the experience of other power markets.

The Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) is not inclined on removing the caps for the number of days allowed for maintenance shutdowns and even for the ‘forced outages’ of power plants across technologies.

As sounded off by ERC Chairperson Monalisa C. Dimalanta, “it’s impossible to remove the caps and I don’t think we’re ready yet to allow a free-for-all rule on the outages.”

The removal of caps or limits on days for maintenance shutdowns of power plants, in particular, had been sought by the Philippine Independent Power Producers Association Inc. (PIPPA), which is the aggrupation of power plant owners and operators in various parts of the country. The outage caps shall be a key component of the reliability indices to be applied in the industry.

Dimalanta noted “what we have agreed to by allowing the (PIPPA) petition to adjust the reliability index is to revisit the caps, because they’re saying some of the caps do not apply to certain technologies – so we agreed and we don’t have problem with that.”

The ERC chief added “what we just need to identify is the proper standards that will be used in setting the caps – but to absolutely do away with the caps, that’s not possible – we will just adjust, that’s more applicable.”

Based on rules set forth by the ERC in 2020, power facilities equipped with pulverized coal technology are allowed to be ‘unavailable’ or they could be on outage for equivalent 44.7 days – comprising of 27.9 days of planned outages and 16.8 days of forced or unplanned outages; while for coal plants running on circulating fluidized bed technology, allowable outages shall be for aggregate 32.3 days with 15.4 days of planned outages and 16.9 days of unplanned outages.

Combined cycle plants, on the other, are permitted for total outages of 20.2 days with 12.5 days for planned outages and 7.7 days for forced outages; gas turbine plants to have total outages of 29.2 days (6.5 days of planned and 22.7 days of unplanned outages); diesel shall be allowed unavailability of 19.0 days (5.0 days of planned and 14 days of forced outages); geothermal to have total outages of 19.7 days (6 days of planned and 13.7 days of unplanned outages); and hydropower facilities could be out from the system for 29.9 days (23.1 days of planned and 6.8 days of unplanned outages).

Further, oil-fired generating facilities are given a total of 58.6 days of outages with 30.8 days of planned shutdown and 27.8 days of unscheduled outages; while biomass are allowed aggregate outages of 39.7 days with 32.7 days of planned shutdowns and 7.0 days of forced outages.

Dimalanta specified that the bid of the power plant owners and operators will be for the ERC to prescribe technically feasible caps that shall be technology-specific, “for example, for a coal plant, you don’t use that same cap for a hydro plant.”

She stressed that under the currently-enforced caps, “even a new plant cannot comply with the number of days that had been set as standard, so it has to be reasonable enough and it must also be at par with other jurisdictions; so we have to look at the forced outage allowances of other jurisdictions so that we can set reasonable standards.”

Dimalanta expounded that the new caps – both for maintenance shutdowns and the allowable forced outages of power plants – must be backed up by credible data.

“We just want the ERC to re-examine and then take a look at the new methodologies, and we are proposing a process for that. We are exploring other avenues to examine (the standards), and hopefully, this would be able to provide better investment climate for the industry,” she emphasized. 

 

 

 

Related Tags

plant outages Reliability index Philippine Independent Power Producers Association generation companies Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC)
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