No red alerts in Luzon seen during summer, but thin supply looms —DOE

Power consumers in the Luzon grid can expect that there will be no outages during the warm dry season months but thin supply conditions are still seen to prevail during the period, the Department of Energy (DOE) said Thursday.

Citing the power situation outlook of the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines as of April 14, the Energy department said that the Luzon grid will no longer have red alert but only yellow alerts from weeks 15 to 18 or from mid-April until early May and weeks 21 to 25 or from mid-May until early June.

Red alert refers to a system condition when there is zero ancillary service or deficient reserves to support spikes in power demands, which can lead to rotational power outages.

A yellow alert, meanwhile, means reserves power supply are thin due to high power demand, although outages are not expected.

At a virtual press briefing, Energy Undersecretary Felix William Fuentebella said that the DOE projects peak demand during summer is 11,841 megawatts (MW) against a system peak capacity of 10,543 MW.

Yellow alerts are expected because of the thin reserves resulting from the extended and forced outages of seven power plants which account for about 1,900 MW of power outages.

The DOE has since called the attention of the seven generation companies that were on outage since March to request information on the outage and estimated time in or resumption of operation. The seven power generation firms are the following:

•     Asia Pacific Energy Corporation (APEC)
•     Caliraya-Botocan-Kalayaan (CBK) Power Company Ltd.
•     Luzon Hydro Corporation (LHC)
•     First Gas Power Corporation (FGPC)
•     GNPower Mariveles Center Ltd. Co. (GMEC)
•     Petron Corporation
•     Sem Calaca Power Corporation (SCPC)

The DOE has been closely monitoring the actual day-to-day peak demand in comparison with the projected demand as a basis for its coordination efforts, Fuentebella said.

He said the Energy department is reminding industry players of their roles for providing quality, reliable, affordable, and secure supply of energy services.

“We have been looking into the most appropriate preventive maintenance schedule that would secure the provision of electricity services for 2021, particularly for April, May, and June,” DOE Assistant Secretary Redentor Delola said.

Energy Secretary Alfonso Cusi directed the DOE to continue monitoring the actual day-to-day peak demand closely in comparison with the projected demand as a basis for its coordination efforts.

“Again, I remind everyone of our commitment to the people to provide reliable and stable power supply. We should extend this beyond the summer months because the government’s COVID-19 vaccination program has been rolled out. We must protect the vaccine from cold storage and healthcare facilities,” Cusi said.—AOL, GMA News