Gencos must sked plant outages for 3 years

By Lenie Lectura – March 12, 2020
from Business Mirror

ENERGY Secretary Alfonso Cusi has signed a department circular that requires all power generation companies to submit the schedule of their plant outages for three years.

“All generating companies shall submit three-year planned outage schedules for their power plants to the NGCP (National Grid Corp. of the Philippines) in accordance with the PGC (Philippine Grid Code),” stated DOE Circular 2020-02-0004.

In a nutshell, the circular is meant to provide guidelines for the planned outage schedules of power plants and transmission facilities, and the publication of the Grid Operating and Maintenance Program (GOMP).

Prior to the issuance of the circular, power generation companies submitted to the NGCP their planned maintenance schedule every year.

The circular also states that NGCP and the Market Operator (MO) will devise a mechanism to come up with an optimal generation and transmission planned outage schedule, which will be the basis of the GOMP.

The agency has been saying that no power plant should conduct maintenance activities during summer months when demand for electricity is at its peak. In the circular, only hydroelectric plants are allowed to conduct maintenance during the peak quarter, added the DOE.

After which, the NGCP will submit on the last day of October of each year the GOMP to the Department of Energy for evaluation and approval.