Wednesday, June 1, 2016

ERC caps plant capacity to limit system vulnerability




THE ENERGY Regulatory Commission (ERC) will be limiting the capacity of prospective power generating plants in the country’s three main island groups to protect the electricity grid against a “single contingency event” and its possible cost to consumers during an outage.
In a resolution released on Tuesday, the commission said it had adopted the recommendation of the Grid Management Committee, Inc. (GMC) to limit the capacity of future generation plants to 650 megawatts (MW) in Luzon, 150 MW in the Visayas and 150 MW in Mindanao.

ERC said the limit was recommended by non-stock, non-profit private entity GMC to “protect the grid against a single contingency event that may be brought about by the failure of the largest generating unit online, as well the cost to consumers of an outage or a higher reserve requirement.”

GMC was created by the ERC as mandated under Republic Act No. 9136, or the Electric Power Industry Reform Act (EPIRA) of 2001, to ensure that all users of the grid are represented in reviewing and making recommendations on connection, operation, maintenance and development of the grid.

The resolution seeks to ensure the reliability and stability of the grid, which the ERC said: “cannot be compromised because of its supreme importance, not only to all power industry stakeholders, but also to the consumers who are considered the majority stakeholders.”

The ERC said: “there must be enough contingency reserve synchronized to the power system at any given time based on the magnitude of the largest single contingency criterion.”

At present, the capacity of the largest generating unit synchronized to the grid is 647 MW in Luzon, 103 MW in Visayas and 150 MW Mindanao.

It said maintaining an amount of contingency reserve equal to the system’s most severe single contingency “is a standard being observed and practiced even in the most complex grid worldwide because the system must be able to withstand the largest single contingency regardless of the probability of its occurrence.” GMC also facilitates the monitoring of compliance with the Grid Code under EPIRA and specifies the processes for the settlement of disputes, enforcement and revision of the code. -- Victor S. Saulon

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