Red alert raised over Luzon grid

The Luzon power grid has been placed under red alert on Wednesday, the first time for this year, due to thinning reserves resulting from outage of several power plants.

In an advisory, the Department of Energy said the red alert status is in place from 10:01 a.m. to 11 a.m. and 1:01 p.m. to 4 p.m.

The National Grid Corp. of the Philippines defines red alert as a system condition when there is zero ancillary services or a generation deficiency exists.

Meanwhile, a yellow alert is also raised from 9:01 a.m. to 10 a.m., 11:01 a.m. to 1 p.m., and 4:01 p.m. to 5 p.m.

Yellow alert refers to a condition in which the reserves are less than the capacity of the biggest plant online, which is 647 megawatts for Luzon.

The red and yellow alerts were triggered by "the high projected system demand and the outage and deration of following generators that resulted to the thinning of reserves":

Unplanned/forced outage:

- Sual Unit 1 (627 megawatts)
- SLPGC Unit 2 (150 megawatts)
- Pagbilao Unit 3 (420 megawatts)
- SLTEC Unit 1 (135 megawatts)

A total of 1,352 megawatts capacity is on unplanned outage.

On the other hand, the following plants were derated:

- Malaya Unit 1 (300 megawatts derated to 150 megawatts)
- Calaca Unit 2 (300 megawatts derated to 150 megawatts)

Also, a total of 827 megawatts capacity is on planned outage as of Wednesday.

Despite the alerts raised over the power grid, the DOE said it does not expect any power interruption because there are 174.6 megawatts available under the Interruptible Load Program (ILP) within the Manila Electric Co. franchise area.

"The distribution utilities, specifically MERALCO, have already notified the ILP participants to activate their self-generating facilities (SGFs) during the mentioned intervals which resulted to the de-loading of 174.3 megawatts," it said.

"This, along with the energy efficiency and conservation program exercised by the customers, may prevent the potential power interruption within its franchise area," it added.

The DOE and the energy players are closely monitoring the increases in demand and the power plants that are expected to be in, it said.

"The other strategies considered by the power industry players include the management of plant maintenance schedules, the optimization of existing hydroelectric power plants, the upgrading of the electricity facilities, the preparation of available generator sets for unforeseen outages, the increased participation of big establishments in the Interruptible Load Program, as well as the continued call for an energy efficiency lifestyle for electricity end-users," the DOE said. —KBK, GMA News