Red and yellow alerts in the Luzon grid were lifted yesterday as cooler temperatures brought by Tropical Storm (TS) Dante caused a slight decline in power demand, according to the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP).
This developed as Energy Undersecretary Felix William Fuentebella said the agency is “gathering pieces of evidence” against power plants that implemented prolonged forced and unforced maintenance shutdowns for possible sanctions.
The Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) meanwhile has issued a notice of non-compliance to concerned generation companies which were ordered to explain their unplanned outages that breached the maximum allowable unplanned outage days per year.
NGCP originally projected yesterday’s peak demand at 11,976 megawatts (MW) against a projected available supply of 11,260 MW or a deficiency of 716 MW which would have placed the grid under yellow and red alerts from 9 a.m. to 11 p.m. The alerts were lifted at 3:21 PM when available capacity went up to 11,357 MW while peak demand dropped to 10,236 MW.
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.
The Department of Energy (DOE) said the synchronization of the 647 MW unit 2 of the Sual coal-fired power plant at 2:21 [p.m yesterday also provided supply to the Luzon Grid.
With Sual back online, NGCP projects a more comfortable supply and demand level today, June 3, with a margin of at least 1,331 MW of available reserves.
The DOE earlier said a 1-degree Celcius change in the heat index is equivalent to at least 100 MW adjustment in power consumption.
“We are strictly monitoring and reviewing the weekly reports being submitted by the generation companies in compliance with our directive pertaining to the reliability performance indices and equivalent outage days per year of generating units. Based on the examination of our technical group, there are gencos that have breached the maximum allowable unplanned outage days as of April 2021,” said Agnes Devanadera, ERC chairperson and chief executive officer, in a statement.
At present, the regulator’s allowable number of days unavailable for power plants stands at 44.7 for pulverize coal-fired; 32.3 for circulating fluidized bed coal-fired; 20.2 for combined cycle gas; 29.2 for gas turbine; 19 for diesel-fired; 19.7 for geothermal; 29.9 for hydroelectric; 58..6 for oil-fired; and 39.7 for biomass.
However, the rules are only applied to generation companies with conventional and non-variable renewable energy generating plants that are connected to the grid, including embedded generating plants with an aggregated capacity of 5 MW and above.
NGCP said that as of 2 p.m. yesterday, two of its power lines were unavailable due to the effects of TS Dante.
Among the affected lines were the Paranas-Borongan-Quinapondan 69 kilovolt line and the Calbayog-Palanas Cara 69 kilovolt line serving the Eastern Samar Electric Cooperative, Samar I Electric Cooperative and Northern Samar Electric Cooperative.
The Department of Agriculture’s DRRM Operations Center said as of 11 a.m. yesterday, as much as 500 metric tons of rice and corn worth P14.6 million were damaged by TS Dante.
The damaged goods are tended by 477 farmers on 616 hectares in Caraga and Soccsksargen.
