Power supply in the Luzon system is still at its ‘fragile state’, prompting system operator National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) to declare fresh wave of ‘yellow alert’ condition in the grid on Wednesday (April 17) as 18 electric generating units are still on forced outages.

Yellow alert, or a situation of power reserves deficiency in the system, is up from 2:00pm to 11:00pm, hence, tight supply conditions would prevail within the stretch of peak demand hours within the day.

According to NGCP, “18 power plants are on forced outage, while three others are running on de-rated (reduced) capacities for a total of 1,969.9 megawatts unavailable to the grid.”

It explained that “a yellow alert is issued when the operating margin is insufficient to meet the transmission grid’s contingency requirement.”

As of press time, there are no indications yet if circumstances will worsen to a ‘red alert’ state, similar to what happened yesterday which pummeled some areas with actual service interruptions.

From the list of plant outages on Tuesday (April 16), it is apparent that only the 264 MW Santa Rita module 40 of First Gen Corporation  and 150MW unit 2 of the Southwest Luzon Power Generation Corp. were able to go back on-line, hence, helping shore up supply in the grid.

Forecast for peak demand in the Luzon grid for Wednesday had been at 12,874 megawatts; while available capacity was projected at 13,607MW.

The Department of Energy (DOE) cannot give definitive timeframes yet on when all of the affected plants can synchronize back to the grid; although it stated that the hydro plants are expected to be on their de-rated electricity generating mode because of low water elevation aggravated by the El Nino phenomenon.

For Visayas grid, yellow alert has been raised between 1:00 to 10:00pm, with 13 plants still suffering outages; while five others have de-rated capacity.

The available capacity in that particular grid within this day hovers at 2,713MW; while peak demand could go as high as 2,523MW.

Aboitiz Power Corporation confirmed that Unit 2 of its Therma Visayas Inc. (TVI) coal plant in Toledo, Cebu with 150MW capacity had been on shutdown since April 15, “due to bed material leak inside the boiler.”

The company conveyed that “repairs will be done to ensure safe and proper operation of the unit,” and its team is targeting to restore the plant’s operations by Friday (April 19).”