Power plant woes trim 5,000 MW off Luzon

OVER 5,000 megawatts (MW) was shaved off from the Luzon grid Thursday because a number of power plants were still on scheduled shutdown, forced outage and could not deliver their full output.

The total power generating capacity unavailable to the grid stood at 5,310 MW. Of this, 2,176  MW was brought about by planned outage, 1,716 MW from forced outage and 1,418MW from derated plants.

This prompted the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP) to issue a yellow alert notice from 10:01 a.m. to 12 noon, from 1:01 to 4 p.m.; and from 5:01 to 6 p.m. This is the fourth consecutive day for the NGCP to issue a yellow alert notice.

The power plants that are on scheduled shutdown are CBK Power hydro plant, Pagbilao coal plant, Sual coal plant, SEM-Calaca coal plant, Panasia combined-cycle plant, Masinloc power plant and the coal plant of South Luzon Thermal Energy Corp.

Those that went on forced outage include San Buenaventura Power Ltd. (SBPL) coal plant; Quezon Power Ltd. coal plant; Prime Meridian Power Corp. Avion natural gas plant unit 2; the gas plant of Millennium Energy Inc.; AP Renewables Inc. Makban geothermal plant and GN Power Mariveles coal plant.

A yellow alert is issued when operating reserves have dropped below the required 647 MW contingency in Luzon, or equivalent to the largest unit in Luzon, which is the 647-MW coal-fired power plant in Sual, Pangasinan.  The Manila Electric Co. has advised its ILP (Interruptible Load Program) participants to deload, if needed.

Image Credits: Roy Domingo