MANILA, Philippines — Some power plants with a combined capacity of 300 megawatts (MW), mostly renewable energy projects, will serve as additional power supply sources to the country amid the dry spell caused by the El Niño phenomenon, the Department of Energy (DOE) said on Monday.
During the government’s televised “Bagong Pilipinas Ngayon” program, Energy Assistant Secretary Mario Marasigan said some coal, solar, biomass and hydropower plants, the majority of which were located in Luzon, would go online this summer.
In a separate message, Marasigan said Unit 1 of the Mariveles coal-fired power plant in Bataan province, which could generate 150 MW, would be commissioned during the period.
According to him, several hydropower projects with aggregate capacities of around 20 MW, a geothermal (binary) project of 29 MW and solar power projects with total capacities of around 104 MW will also be switched on.
“Based on our monitoring and assessments, we do not expect any shortage in electricity supply and the current demand has not yet reached our projected peak demand this year,” Marasigan said.
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Estimated peak demand
The DOE, he added, estimated that electricity demand in the Luzon grid this year may reach a peak of 13,917 MW, an increment of 10 percent from last year’s peak demand of 12,550 MW.
Peak demand in the Visayas is pegged at 2,891 MW, up by 17.6 percent from last year’s 2,458 MW, while in Mindanao, peak demand is anticipated to rise by 11.6 percent from 2,315 MW.
“We still have a gap of about 2,000 MW in Luzon, while in [the Visayas and Mindanao], there is still around 200 to 500 MW shortfall in the estimated peak demands this year,” he added.
Furthermore, the 230-kilovolt Cebu-Negros-Panay Stage 3 interconnection project of the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP), designed to ensure the reliability and security of supply in Negros and Panay, was completed last week.
Marasigan said that with the energization of the project, the capacity to transfer power supply to and from these areas has increased to 400 MW from the previous 180 MW.
“[In the] past week, the system operator assured us the transfer capacity from Cebu to Negros is available,” he said.
On the other hand, the Mindanao-Visayas Interconnection Project, which started commercial operations this year, will ensure enough power supply in the Visayas.
The NGCP project unified three major power grids in the country, allowing energy resource sharing as any excess power from one grid may be transmitted to another.
“We foresee a lack of electricity in the Visayas if power generation only comes from the [area],” Marasigan said. INQ