Several power plants in the Luzon Grid went on unscheduled outages and derating yesterday which led to a red alert in power supply.
This resulted to up to two hours of rotating power interruptions in some areas in Metro Manila, Rizal and Cavite, affecting about 300,000 customers.
Yellow alerts are issued when the level of power reserve in the grid is low while red alerts are declared when actual power supply against demand is insufficient and power interruptions are imminent.
According to the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP), a total of 1,354 megawatts (MW) were unavailable in the Luzon Grid yesterday as three power plants went on unscheduled outages while two more are running on derated capacity.
This is within the timeframe the Department of Energy (DOE) determined to have thin power supply reserves.
NGCP said available capacity in the Luzon Grid yesterday reached 12,186 megawatts (MW) against a peak demand of 12,468 MW.
NGCP placed the Luzon Grid yesterday on red alert from 1 to 4 p.m. and from 6 to 8 p.m. while on yellow alert from 4 to 6 p.m.
The DOE, through its Electric Power Industry Management Bureau, said it is closely monitoring and coordinating with NGCP and the concerned generation companies.
DOE said NGCP placed the Luzon Grid on alert following the tripping of the Bolo-Masinloc 230 kilovolt line 2 which led to the tripping of Masinloc coal-fired power plant units 1 and 2 for a total of 618 MW.
The agency added reduced generation supply in Luzon also affected power export to the Visayas grid, which resulted in the declaration of a one-hour yellow alert.
Following the declaration of red and yellow alerts in the Luzon grid, the NGCP as the system operator declared a suspension of the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM) in the Luzon Grid. The suspension of the WESM will effectively shield the public from volatile prices that may arise from the unavailability of some power plants,” the DOE said.
The DOE is still verifying if power interruptions outside of Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) franchise area also occurred.
Meralco said at 3:45 p.m. yesterday, it restored electricity service to all customers affected by the manual load dropping which it implemented following NGCP’s declaration of red alert.
“We immediately activated the interruptible load program (ILP) to help manage the situation and requested our big-load customers to remain on standby until the situation normalizes. We continue to monitor the situation and are ready to implement measures as needed,” Meralco said, in a statement.
Under the ILP, customers with large electricity consumption are encouraged to run their own generator sets whenever supply of electricity in the grid is short in exchange for monetary incentives.
The fuel that they will use in running their own power source are then paid by consumers.
