Danessa Rivera (The Philippine Star)
- April 4, 2019 - 12:00am
MANILA, Philippines — The Department
of Energy (DOE) has called for more transparency regarding plant outages and
the power situation as the Luzon grid was placed on yellow alert anew
yesterday, the third consecutive day this week.
The National Grid Corp. of the
Philippines (NGCP) raised a yellow alert status from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. due to
insufficient operating reserve.
A yellow alert means there are not
enough reserves to cover the largest running generating unit at the time, but
does not necessarily lead to power outages.
Power plants still on unplanned
outage include Pagbilao 3 (420 megawatts), Masinloc 2 (344 MW), Pagbilao 1 (382
MW), SLTEC 1 (150 MW) and Malaya 2 (350 MW).
Plants with derated capacity are the
Calaca 2 at 200 MW (from 300 MW) and SLPGC 2 at 100 MW (from 150 MW).
“Unfortunately in the last three
days, we had some reduction of power reserves,” Mario Marasigan, DOE-Electric
Power Industry Management Bureau director, told a Senate hearing yesterday.
On Tuesday, demand went up to 10,267
MW, which pushed contingency reserve to fall below the prescribed level of 647
MW, the capacity of the largest unit in the Luzon grid.
The DOE urged industry players not
to announce grid alert status ahead of time to prevent causing alarm among
consumers.
“We don’t want the situation to be taken
advantage by some players in the sector,” Marasigan said.
However, consumer group Laban
Konsyumer Inc. said the DOE should announce instances of yellow alert status in
the power grid, citing the Freedom of Information Act.
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