NGCP expands Las Piñas substation

Manila Bulletin 
Published: July 5, 2013 
An approval by the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) is being sought by the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) for its proposed P662 million Las Piñas substation expansion project.
The company noted that it will need to install another transformer in the substation, which is considered among the core facilities servicing the loads of power utility giant Manila Electric Company.
NGCP said the facility currently has three power transformers with 300-megavolt ampere (MVA) capacity as installed. The project’s completion, once given go-signal by the industry regulator, will be carried out in 33 months.
For this expansion venture, the transmission firm is intending “to add another 300MVA transformer to increase the substation’s capacity and meet the increasing demand of Meralco customers in the area.”
NGCP emphasized that it is pushing for this particular project’s implementation as part of its mandate to achieve N-1 contingency at the country’s transmission network as provided under the Grid Code.
With N-1 or single outage contingency, the transmission system can still function despite the loss of one major component, including that of a transformer.
The company justified that the additional transformer is critically needed because “if one of the three transformers malfunctions, it would cause overloading for the remaining transformers” and this could “gravely affect the power supply of Metro Manila.”
According to Rico C. Vega, deputy assistant chief technical officer for planning and engineering of NGCP, if the Las Piñas substation suffers overloading, the company would automatically resort to load shedding and this could set off power interruptions in the area.
Hence, he noted that “by carrying out this project, we can avoid this scenario since the substation will be more capable of handling larger load.”
NGCP has been pursuing various expansion as well as reinforcement projects at the transmission network based on its approved capital outlay by the ERC.
If it will need to pursue additional project that is outside its approved rates under performance-based regulation (PBR) within prescribed regulatory reset period, then NGCP will need to seek separate approval for such from the regulator. (MMV)  source