Luzon power supply tight until August: NGCP exec

Residents of Luzon will continue to experience tight power supply in the next three months.

At a briefing on Wednesday, Fidel Dagsaan, National Grid Corp. of the Philippines division head for power network planning, said the Luzon grid is expected to normalize in September yet when hydropower plants resume operations after the rainy season.

Dangsaan said yellow and red alerts could still be raised in the Luzon grid until September.

“Projection wise, (power supply will normalize) around September,” he said.

The Luzon grid was placed on yellow alert anew from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. and 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. on Tuesday, with available capacity of 11,161 megawatts while peak demand was projected to reach 10,182 MW.

On Wednesday, a yellow alert, the sixth for the month, was raised from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. with available capacity at 11,845 MW and peak demand expected to reach 11,214 MW.

A yellow alert means there are not enough reserves to cover the largest running generating unit at the time, but does not necessarily lead to power outages. 

Power supply was also reportedly affected by the forced outage of the 345-MW Unit 1 of GNPower Mariveles Coal Plant Ltd. Co. since Tuesday.

The 60-MW Unit 1 of Bacman Energy Inc. is also on unplanned shutdown since May 14.

Several power plants are operating on derated capacity while hydropower plants are operating at limited capacity due to low water level.

“The projection remains. We see hitting 11,400 MW next week, between May 20 and 24,” Energy Undersecretary Felix William Fuen-tebella said.