ERC: NGCP followed most of 2023 Panay outage recommendations

The National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) complied with nearly all of an expert panel's recommendations after the Panay Island outages in April 2023, ahead of the January 2024 blackout, Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) Chairperson Monalisa Dimalanta said Friday.

“All of the required actions of NGCP [in the aftermath of April 2023 Panay Island outage], including coordination with the generating plants; simulations, several simulations that were required of NGCP of several scenarios, contingencies... as of the November [2023] report of NGCP [to ERC]. They indicated all of these measures as completed, save for one," Dimalanta testified during the House Energy inquiry into the January 2 to 4 Panay power outage.

"It was a short [November 2023 NGCP] report that they submitted [to ERC] in November [2023]. We [have since] ordered them to submit detailed reports,” the ERC Chairperson added.

Dimalanta explained that a group of experts handed the recommendations to the NGCP based on an interim grid management committee investigation of the 2023 outage.

Dimalanta, however, admitted that one of the April 2023 panel recommendations that NGCP failed to comply with was to coordinate their response to such outages with stakeholders.

House Deputy Majority Leader Lorenz Defensor of Iloilo asked Dimalanta, "So do you agree with me... that among your recommendations [is] that [the] NGCP [should] coordinate with the stakeholders, [and that] they failed to coordinate for the January incident?"

Dimalanta replied, "From the current records, yes.”

Dimalanta also testified that they were still investigating the NGCP over last week's Panay Island outages and that NGCP’s obligations, as provided under the Grid Code, were clear.

Under the Grid Code, the system operator, such as NGCP, was “responsible for ensuring that load-generation balance is maintained during normal, alert and emergency conditions."

The Grid Code also states that following an emergency condition, the system operator is also responsible for the following:

• directing grid recovery efforts,
• ensuring that the grid voltage is maintained within the normal limits at all times, and
• taking the necessary actions to the best of its judgment whenever the tolerance of +5% of the nominal value is breached and during emergency conditions through direct control.

Dimalanta also said that since the January Panay Island outage was a case of a credible n-1 contingency in which there was no temporary System Integrity Protection Scheme (SIPS) in place to avoid the spreading of the disturbance, NGCP should have taken the following measures:

• generating unit re-dispatching,
• usage of voltage and/or power flow control on regulation transformers,
• network re-configuration,
• manual load dropping, or
• generating unit tripping.

“These are the actions that we look forward to receiving in the report of the system operator (NGCP) in the course of our investigation,” Dimalanta said.

The ERC had said earlier that the NGCP failed in its obligation to report to stakeholders, including ERC, the first tripping of the 83-megawatt Panay Energy Development Corporation (PEDC) Unit 1 at noon of January 2, setting off a three-day power outage.

The NGCP, however, insisted that it followed all protocols in addressing the Panay Island outages.— DVM, GMA Integrated News