MANILA, Philippines—As the country braces for the heat and tight power supply this summer, the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP) said the danger of experiencing power outages appears to be remote.
Still, the NGCP appealed to the public to use electricity wisely and act responsibly with regard to power facilities like transmission towers—to prevent disrupting the power supply.
“The supply will be tight, but the NGCP will be ready to transmit whatever power is available to the grid,” NGCP spokesperson Cynthia D. Perez-Alabanza said in a phone interview.
“Right now it looks like there is no imminent outage. As long as there are no unusual scenarios where several major plants have outages at the same time, we should be OK,” she said.
According to the NGCP’s latest data, the highest peak demand this year is forecast at 8,654 megawatts in the month of May. The highest actual peak demand last year was 8,305 MW. This month, demand is seen to peak in the Visayas at 1,554 MW and in Mindanao at 1,400 MW.
Alabanza declined to specify which plants will be on shutdown and forced outage, citing market confidentiality issues.
Data from NGCP only says that in Luzon, three power plant units will be on scheduled shutdown and one is set to be on forced outage from March to May.
In the Visayas, two will be on scheduled shutdown and one on forced outage. The high-voltage direct current (HVDC) line linking Luzon (Naga City) and the Visayas (Leyte island) will be shut down for maintenance on April 9-21 because the facility’s housing/valve hall at the HVDC station will be reinforced.
In Mindanao, one power plant is scheduled to be shut down and two will be on forced outage during the summer months.
Even with this scheduled maintenance work, the NGCP assured the public that the grid is secure and will be able to handle the load. Back-up lines are fully operational and ready to deliver available power from the generators, it said.
Alabanza said the NGCP is confident that that its transmission facilities—transmission towers, lines and substations— can efficiently transmit available power to the grid.
To mitigate grid issues related to the summer months, the NGCP said it conducted earlier this year an audit of substation equipment and transmission lines all over the country. Since February, major lines and equipment have been inspected and scanned for defects or abnormalities, which were subsequently evaluated and corrected, it added.
It will continue to do this throughout the year, it said.
Also in preparation for the summer, the NGCP urged the public to be mindful of the risks of breaching right-of-way clearances near transmission lines and towers.
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