Luzon power supply dips, but electricity assured on May 9

THE ELECTRICITY grid in Luzon experienced a “yellow alert” or tight power supply Monday but this  is expected to be resolved by the end of April or before the May 9 elections, officials of the Department of Energy (DOE) said.

Citing reports from the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP) and generation companies, Energy OIC-Undersecretary Mylene Capongcol said nine power plants involving 13 generating units were on planned and unplanned outages Monday afternoon.

This prompted the Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) to announce that its franchise area was on yellow alert after 1 p.m. until peak electricity demand eased later in the day.

Energy Secretary Zenaida Y. Monsada said a yellow alert does not necessarily mean there will be outages. She said it only means that Luzon has a limited or thin power reserve.

Based on the outlook for Luzon, she said the yellow alert registered  only on Monday afternoon as reserve power was expected to normalize in the evening.

There was a brief outage, however,  in the Meralco network.

“At 3:14 p.m., an automatic load dropping occurred when Sual Unit 2 tripped due to a still undetermined cause. The last of the circuits affected by the ALD were restored at 3:29 p.m. A yellow alert in Luzon grid is still in effect,” Meralco spokesperson Joe Zaldarriaga said in a text message.

He said unplanned outages were expected to be resolved within the day and that any further incidents should be resolved by end-April to ensure that the power supply is stable for the May 9 elections.

Monsada said, “Our team is currently assessing the power supply situation by closely coordinating with the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines and the power plant owners/operators in Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao to make  sure that the generating facilities, which are currently on maintenance shutdown, will be back online ahead of the election period.”

She emphasized that these planned outages are more on the integrity assessment of the plants to ensure that these are sound and running during the election period.

Monsada said the NGCP, as the system operator, had alerted the Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corp., the operator of the 600-MW Malaya plant to run the generating facility to augment the power supply.

The DOE has also coordinated with the Interruptible Load Program participants for provisional power supply of about 826MW to supplement the available capacities.

Luzon power generating plants undergoing maintenance shutdown are targeted to be back online before April ends.