by Myrna Velasco August 22, 2016
The Department of Energy (DOE) is
keenly contemplating on policy reversal that shall finally require publication
of all scheduled power plant maintenance shutdowns, instead of just restricting
the information to them and system operator National Grid Corporation of the
Philippines.
“The question on the publication of
shutdown schedules of power plants is very relevant…we are currently debating
about it,” Energy Secretary Alfonso G. Cusi has noted.
He said the contentious point of
discourse is whether or not policies or rules would be breached with such
policy enforcement or if this also triggers an act promoting ‘opportunistic
behavior’ among the industry players.
“I am in favor of it (publication of
schedules), the only thing is: am I violating anything because of
competitive behavior concerns? Because if they would know the schedule of plant
shutdowns, they (industry players) might take advantage of that to game the
market,” the energy chief stressed.
He similarly emphasized probable
security concerns being transgressed which is a concern periodically raised by
the power system operator.
Other power markets in the world set
policies on publication of their scheduled plant downtimes – and so far, these
were not known to have been triggers of ‘market gouging’ operations.
The power generation companies
(GenCos), via the Philippine Independent Power Producers Association (PIPPA),
previously lodged with the DOE their plea to have their shutdown schedules
published to avoid simultaneous maintenance activities that have been causing
massive capacity loss in the system.
Often, power plants undergoing
maintenance shutdowns also encounter technical snags while being
re-synchronized to the grid, and forced outages turn out be part of the
‘normally occurring sequence’ hours or days after repair works at the
generating facilities.
These circumstances could aggravate
tightness in supply, thus, it is not advisable that power plant maintenance
schedules are done simultaneously or on overlapping timeframes.
Luzon grid has over 13,443 megawatts
of nameplate capacity and about 12,014MW of dependable capacity. At peak demand
of 9,500 to 9,600 ranges, Cusi opined that supply should have been enough to
meet demand if not for the sporadic forced outages of power plants.
“Technical glitches in power plants
happen, that cannot be avoided. But what we are trying to emphasize here is
that there should be replacement power (in the contracted capacities of the
distribution utilities) and reserves that must be procured by NGCP,” Cusi said.
The rest of the year will still be
pummeled with scheduled power plant shutdowns, hence, the energy department
cannot still fully assure if the series of yellow and red alert conditions in
the grid will no longer recur.
No comments:
Post a Comment