October 15, 2019 | 9:28 pm
THE Department
of Energy (DoE) said Tuesday that the Luzon grid will have enough reserve power
tomorrow as it expects the Malampaya gas-to-power project, which fuels the
country’s gas-fired power plants, to complete its maintenance shutdown.
“We don’t see any
yellow alert status for tomorrow because of the additional 1,620 MW [megawatts]
from the natural gas plants,” Energy Undersecretary Felix William B.
Fuentebella told reporters.
He said the DoE expects
Malampaya’s maintenance to have been completed Tuesday. He said once gas supply
is available, the Ilijan plant’s blocks A and B, with a combined capacity of
1,200 MW, and the 420-MW San Gabriel plant will be back in operation on
Wednesday.
For the Sual plant’s
unit 1, Mr. Fuentebella said: “as per their report yesterday, they are
targeting to complete the repair and ‘washing’ of turbine by 21 or 22 Oct.
2019.”
He said the preventive
maintenance shutdown of Sual’s unit 2, which was originally scheduled to start
on Oct. 19 and end on Nov. 17, will be moved until unit 1 is available and
stable.
Luzon’s thinning power
reserve is one of several issues that the DoE had to face recently after Energy
Secretary Alfonso G. Cusi returned from Russia for the visit of President
Rodrigo R. Duterte.
On Monday, Senator
Sherwin T. Gatchalian filed a resolution for the Senate energy committee to
hold an inquiry on the status of the agency’s Nuclear Energy Program
Implementing Organization (NEPIO), including its recommendation for the country
to embark on a nuclear power program.
“A comprehensive,
transparent, and public discussion must be made on the merits of a national
nuclear program taking into consideration the social, economic, environmental,
and technical effects and requirements of such a program,” he said.
Mr. Cusi said he signed
a memorandum of intent in Moscow during the President’s visit earlier this
month.
“It is the intent of
Russia, Rosatom (Russian State Atomic Energy Corp.) in particular, to study
adapting a small modular reactor for the country,” he said.
He said the signing was
a follow-up of Mr. Duterte’s visit to Russia in 2017 when the two parties
signed a cooperation agreement with the Russian ministry of energy to study how
they can collaborate in various technologies, including setting policy.
Mr. Cusi said Friday
that the Cabinet discussed the nuclear issue until almost 2 a.m., and that the
discussions were “alive, passionate, intelligent.”
“I justified why we
need nuclear,” he said, adding that all the issues faced by the Bataan Nuclear
Power Plant “had been answered by time.” He said the plant had been “demonized,
politicized” when it could have changed the country’s economic landscape. — Victor
V. Saulon
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