By Danessa Rivera (The
Philippine Star) | Updated June 14, 2016 - 12:00am
MANILA, Philippines - The Luzon grid
was placed on yellow alert yesterday due to thin power reserves as several big
plants tripped over the weekend.
A yellow alert means power reserves
are below the minimum level set by the regulator. In Luzon, the minimum is 647 megawatts
(MW), which is equivalent to the capacity of a unit of Sual plant, the region’s
largest.
The National Grid Corp. of the
Philippines (NGCP) placed the Luzon grid on alert from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. as the
available capacity was only 9,649 MW when peak demand was expected to reach
9,247 MW.
Four power plants went on forced
outage over the weekend, Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) senior vice president
and head of utility economics Larry Fernandez told The STAR in a text message.
“Reserves are below the 647 MW
required to remain at normal status, mainly because of the forced outage of
several big power plants... such as Calaca, GN Power, Quezon Power and Sual,”
Fernandez said.
Only GN Power went back online early
yesterday.
Energy Secretary Zenaida Monsada
said the Luzon grid lost over 1,000 MW from the three plants that were still
out.
Irma Exconde, Department of Energy
director, said the government has started running Unit 2 of the Malaya power
plant in Rizal to mitigate power interruption.
To minimize load factor in its
franchise area, Meralco also started advising Interruptible Load Program
participants “to prepare for possible activation.”
The grid situation was expected to
normalize last night as Quezon Power was scheduled to go back online.
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