DOE Secretary Jericho Petilla. AP FILE PHOTO
MANILA, Philippines — The power situation in Luzon remains precarious this week — while business luminaries and investors are in hot Manila for the World Economic Forum (WEF) — as demand is expected to peak by May 22.
Energy Secretary Carlos Jericho L. Petilla has warned of “thin reserves” due to tight supply. Yet, according to Petilla, there is no special preparation for the WEF as energy stakeholders are doing their best to keep the power situation stable as they always do. “We will simply continue to monitor and ensure adequate supply at anytime, WEF or no WEF,” Petilla said.
Mylene C. Capongcol, director of the electric power industry management bureau of the Department of Energy (DOE) said, “There would still be tightness in supply and we expect the highest demand to occur this week, possibly on May 22.” She said power demand could peak on May 22 at 8,600MW.
The National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP) said power supply could be just 9,273MW for the day.
Unit 2 of the 1,200-MW Sual coal plant in Pangasinan province, operated by the TeaM Energy Corp., went back online at 8:03 a.m. on May 17 after having been shut down since May 14. This allows the Luzon grid to have reserves, although “thin,” amid the five-day emergency shutdown of Unit 1 of the 700MW Pagbilao coal power plant starting May 16.
The Manila Electric Co.’s (Meralco) SVP for customer retail services and corporate communications, Alfredo S. Panlilio, said in a text message that the country’s top distribution utility has been coordinating with the DOE, NGCP and other power industry players on the supply situation for this coming week.
Meralco, Panlilio said, would like to ensure minimal or if possible, “nil” outages across the franchise. “We are also in touch with all ILP
(Interruptible Load Program) partners just in case we need to call on them,” he said.
ILP is a back-up power plan where operators of huge power users such as malls, condominiums, hotels, and even factories are asked to use their own generation sets to ease demand from the grid. The program was triggered last May 16 when the Pagbilao shutdown triggered rotating one-hour outages in portions of Manila, Quezon City, Caloocan, Malabon, Navotas and Marilao, Bulacan province from around 2 p.m. to almost 5 p.m.
NGCP said that since power supply has been tight all summer, any drop in power supply in large power plants would make electricity supply fall short of what consumers need. Weekends usually mean less power demand but weekday demand, especially this week, could test power stakeholders’ mettle.
According to the Sy-led company, it does not control power supply but during periods of generation deficiency, it does its best to mitigate the situation by implementing the grid-wide power load curtailment to maintain the grid’s security and reliability.
The company said it has been closely monitoring the situation and coordinating with the Department of Energy (DOE) to ensure that all the capacities available to the grid would be dispatched efficiently.
NGCP, as system operator, issues Grid Operation Notices to grid users.
“Red alert” refers to the system condition when the contingency reserve is zero or a generation deficiency exists, while a “Yellow alert” is a system condition where the total of all reserves is less than the capacity of the largest plant online, which for the Luzon grid, is 647 MW. When system reserves are more than sufficient to meet the reserve requirements of the grid, the system is considered to be under normal condition.
The system alert, and the corresponding power curtailment, if any, is lifted once demand recedes or once there is enough available capacity coming into the grid from the power plants.
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