(The Philippine Star) | Updated September 3, 2016 - 12:00am
MANILA, Philippines -
First Gen Corp. will delay the resumption of operations of Unit 20 of the
1,000-megawatt (MW) Sta. Rita combined cycle power plant until October to
ensure its reliability by replacing the damaged transformer of the facility.
In a disclosure to the
Philippine Stock Exchange, First Gen said preliminary inspection showed the
main components of Unit 20’s transformer were damaged, following a fault last
month.
“To expedite the
restoration of Unit 20, the damaged main transformer will be replaced with the
spare main transformer which is stored on site. Unit 20 is expected to return
to operation by the first week of October 2016,” the company said.
Unit 20, which has a
250-MW capacity, was under scheduled maintenance outage from July 23 to Aug. 26
for works including maintenance activities on the transformer.
But during the
one-month maintenance, a fault occurred in the main transformer which was
immediately investigated.
Unit 20 of the Sta.
Rita plant was among the nine power plants that were out when a series yellow
and red alerts were raised in the Luzon grid by the National Grid Corp. of the
Philippines from July 25 to 29.
A yellow alert status
means that contingency reserves are below the minimum level set by the
regulator, but does not necessarily lead to power outages.
Unit 20 is one out of
the four units of the Sta. Rita power plant which is owned by First Gas Power
Corp., a wholly owned subsidiary of First Gen.
No comments:
Post a Comment