Published
By Myrna Velasco
Insufficient power
reserves placed anew the Luzon grid on “yellow alert condition” on Monday
–roughly a month prior to the mid-term elections on May 13 this year.
According to an
advisory sent to relevant stakeholders by system operator National Grid
Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP), yellow alert or reserve-scant situation
in the grid was raised on April 1, from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m. and from 1 p.m. to 4
p.m.
For the biggest power
grid in the country to plunge into yellow alert, it means that its second level
of reserves could no longer be fully served by available capacity in the power
system.
And while this circumstance may not necessarily result in rolling brownouts,
consumers would still need to worry because this could mean higher electricity
rates that they will eventually experience in their power bills.
Data culled from the
Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM) showed that demand for Luzon grid was
anticipated to reach as high as 9,792.2 megawatts on Monday; while
load-weighted average price (LWAP) in the spot market was seen peaking at P34
per kilowatt hour at 2 p.m.
Conversely, NGCP
indicated that Monday’s demand was seen to have peaked at 10,178 megawatts
(MW); and gross reserve was placed at 1,381 MW. System demand, which infers the
capacity availability of power plants, was at 11,559 MW.
This latest episode of
slumped reserve situation in the grid was due to the fresh round of forced
outages in power plants – including the unit 2 of Masinloc coal-fired plant;
unit 1 of Pagbilao coal-fired power plant; and unit 1 of the South Luzon
Thermal Energy Corporation (SLTEC) plant.
Even the generating unit 2 of government-run Malaya thermal power plant was
also reported to be on unscheduled outage on Monday.
In cases of yellow
alerts or in extreme supply deficiency because of plant outages, big-ticket
customers such as commercial establishments and industries are encouraged to
switch on their own generating sets and seek compensation under the
interruptible load program (ILP) instituted for the industry.
Essentially, it is just
the start of full summer months, hence, relevant government agencies –
primarily the Department of Energy (DOE) – would need to assure that power
supply would really be sufficient during election time – from the start of
voting until the time that tabulation and transmission of results would have
been completed.
The DOE said it has
contingency measures in case of power interruptions during the polling season –
and that includes the deployment of generator sets in affected areas.
Brownout-marred elections are often feared because, in previous incidents, this
became a tool for tampering the results of such critical political exercise.
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