Quake puts Luzon grid on red alert for 4th day
Four power generators in Bataan with a total capacity of close to 1,000 megawatts have remained out of service due to Monday’s earthquake, putting the Luzon grid under red alert for the fourth day in a row on Thursday.
The Department of Energy (DOE) said the two power plant complex on forced outage have a total installed capacity of 990 MW.
Two generators with a capacity of 345 MW each belong to the GNPower Mariveles Coal Plant Ltd. Co.’s facility in Mariveles, while the two others with 150 MW each belong to the SMC Consolidated Power Corp.’s facility in Limay.
According to the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP), electricity demand might exceed available generating capacity for 10 hours on Thursday—from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and again from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m.
NGCP has cued various areas in Luzon for possible rotating service interruption, while the Manila Electric Co. said it has started implementing two-hour rotating brownouts.
The DOE noted that the 420-MW Unit 3 of Pagbilao Energy Corp. was running at only 133 MW due to an ongoing assessment of its boiler, while the 300-MW Unit 2 of SEM-Calaca Power Corp. remains limited at 200 MW because of a condenser problem.
“A total of 248.88 MW of power has been committed by ILP (interruptible load program) participants, which will allow the plants to operate their generating sets as support to the limited power supply,” the agency said in an advisory.
