By peak demand hours of 2:00 to 4:00pm and at prime time hours of 6:00 to 9:00pm this Wednesday, consumers in the Luzon grid are feared to be teetering into rotational brownouts or a state of red alert because of close to 20 power generating units suffering forced outages.

A red alert, in particular, is declared by system operator National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) when the reserves requirement in the system would fall below 4.0 percent vis-à-vis projected peak demand.

NGCP emphasized that “19 power plants are on forced outages; while three others are running on derated capacities, or a total of 2,117.3 megawatts unavailable to the grid.”

Apart from that, yellow alert or a state of power reserves insufficiency will also distress Luzon grid from 1:00pm to 2:00pm; then at 4:00 to 6:00pm and 9:00 to 11:00pm; while the same yellow alert has also been raised for Visayas grid from 2:00 to 4:00pm and 6:00 to 7:00pm.

For Visayas, NGCP noted that “12 power plants are on forced outages; while five others are on derated capacities for a total of 676.5MW unavailable to the grid.”

Based on data from NGCP, the electric generating units suddenly taken out from the system in the Luzon grid due to forced outages have been those of Masinloc 1; Southwest Luzon Power Generation Corp 2; Santa Rita plant module 40; Binga 1, Binga 4, Ambuklao 1 and 2; Bakun 1 and 2 units; Maris 1 and 2 units; the generating unit of the National Irrigation Administration; Bineng plant; Irisan;  Pagbilao units 1 and 2; VS Gripal plant and BT 2020 generating units.

From the forced outages of the generating facilities, it was reported by the grid operator that there was a loss of aggregate 1,811.3 megawatts in the system.

On top of that, there are also three major plants with capacity de-rating (reduced power generation) of at least 306MW - including those of the South Luzon Thermal Energy Corporation units 1 and 2; as well as the Ilijan Block A generating unit.

For Tuesday (April 16), the estimated peak demand for Luzon grid was at 13,024 megawatts; while available capacity was extremely tight at 13,537MW.

In the Visayas grid, peak demand forecast was at 2,440MW; while available capacity had been pegged by the system operator at 2,742MW.

The plant outages in the Visayas grid have been: San Carlos biomass plant; HPC cogeneration plant; Victorias Milling Co. plant; Palm Concepcion Power; Power Barges 101 units 2 and 3;  South Negros BioPower Plant; Therma Visayas Inc. unit 2; First Farmers Holding Corp plant; and Panay diesel power plant unit 3-G; while those with de-rated capacities are the Leyte A geothermal plant; Palinpinon geothermal power plant; Cebu Energy Development Corp unit 3; Tongonan geothermal power plant and Panay diesel power plant unit 3-E facility.

Given the extremely strained power supply in the grid, power utility giant Manila Electric Company (Meralco) indicated that it is “closely monitoring the situation and will give updates as soon as available.”

As of press time, there are no rotational blackouts being enforced yet as peak demand hour is stll anticipated to start at 2:00pm.