Power supply to improve with La Nina, says Gatchalian

By Alena Mae S. Flores – May 20, 2024, 7:55 pm
from manilastandard.net

Senator Sherwin Gatchalian expressed optimism the country’s power situation will improve with the onset of the rainy season and cooler temperature.

“I am optimistic in terms of… the electricity margins. Optimistic that it will improve because it will be cooler. Not because there are power plants coming but because temperatures are cooler,” Gatchalian, vice-chairman of the Senate Committee on Energy, said as the sidelines of the Solar & Storage Live Philippines forum.

Gatchalian said with the rainy season, the hydro plants can also resume operations. Most of the hydro plants were operating at below or zero capacity during the dry months.

He made the comment as the Luzon and Visayas grid continued to be on yellow alert for several hours Monday on thin reserves.

A yellow alert is issued when the operating margin is insufficient to meet the transmission grid’s contingency requirement.

The National Grid Corp. of the Philippines placed the Luzon grid on yellow alert from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. as about 2,040.8 megawatts remained unavailable to the grid.

NGCP said three plants were on forced outage since 2023, three between January and March 2024 and 13 power plants between April and May 2024. Four were running on derated capacities.

NGCP expects peak demand to reach 13,125MW on Monday compared to available capacity of 13,867 MW.

Meanwhile, NGCP placed the Visayas grid on yellow alert from 1 p.m. to 9 p.m.

Gatchalian said the Energy Regulatory Commission and the Department of Energy should improve their proactive process to ensure energy security.

“It’s not about the law, but being proactive. And also, they pointed out they lacked people… training and… the anticipation what to do next. …For me, it’s more of the management that was lacking,” he said.