Tight power reserves expected next week

Business World Online

Posted on June 22, 2012 07:04:44 PM

LUZON’S power reserves will remain tight as several power plants are expected to continue operating at diminished capacities next week. The situation this weekend is expected to normalize however, as demand is normally lower on weekends.

The Energy department said the affected power plants, which have been operating at lower capacities than normal since Thursday, will not be fully operational due to a number of technical issues.

As of Friday, the 600-megawatt (MW) Calaca coal-fired power plant, the 735-MW Pagbilao power plant, 1,200-MW Sual coal-fired power plant, and the 200-MW Tiwi geothermal power plant were operating at lower capacities.

“We expect a big chunk of our power supply to still be down next week. Calaca will be out until June 30 because of a boiler tube leak and Pagbilao has undergone scheduled maintenance until July 11. Tiwi is also experiencing low steam issues which are expected to last until next week,” said Energy Undersecretary Josefina Patricia M. Asirit in a telephone interview Friday with BusinessWorld. 

She added the Malaya power plant, which is normally run to help augment a tight power supply, is still not being run in order to save its fuel for the planned Malampaya natural gas project shutdown on July 13. Malampaya, which provides natural gas to fire the Sta. Rita and the San Lorenzo power plants, will be shut down for eight days in July. The Energy department could decide to run Malaya early if the situation continues to be tight.

The National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) declared a yellow alert in the Luzon grid due to the thin reserves. As of Friday, Luzon had reserves of around 400 MW with a peak demand of 7,727 MW.

A yellow alert is raised when reserves fall below the required 600 MW and far below the comfortable cushion of 1,000 MW. Red alerts are raised when there are no more reserves. 

“Barring any further problems, the power situation is expected to normalize in the weekend. We have not received any notice from the power plant operators regarding their supply next week but expect the yellow alert to continue next week,” said NGCP Spokesperson Cynthia D. Perez-Alabanza in a separate interview.

Early on Friday, the Manila Electric Co. issued a rotating brown-out schedule due to the tight power supply but it did not implement it. -- Emilia Narni J. David    source