PLANT OUTAGES. Energy Secretary Raphael Lotilla speaks at a Malacañang press briefing on Oct. 24, 2023. In a statement on Tuesday (April 16, 2024), Lotilla said the extreme heat these days has been affecting power plant operations and triggered the issuance of red and yellow alerts in the Luzon and Visayas grids. (PNA file photo by Joan Bondoc)
MANILA – The Department of Energy (DOE) said the “extremely high temperatures” this day affected the operations of power plants, with 31 power generation facilities going down as of Tuesday, prompting red and yellow alerts in the Luzon grid and a yellow alert in the Visayas grid.
In a statement, DOE Secretary Raphael Lotilla said the agency has asked the power plant operators to work on restoring full operations of the facilities.
He added that the DOE will also continue to monitor the situation of the power plants until their operations are fully restored.
“The extremely high temperatures have been affecting the operations of power plants in the grid,” Lotilla said.
For the Luzon grid, Pagbilao Unit 1 went on forced outage on April 16, taking out 382 megawatts of capacity from the grid.
To date, 19 power plants have not been in operation, including those that shut down since Aug. 1, 2023.
For April alone, nine power plants in the Luzon grid were not operating including hydro power plants Maris 1 and 2 with 8.6 MW capacity, the 12.4-MW Bakun 2, the 75-MW Ambuklao 1 and 2, and the 70-MW Binga 1 and 4, as well as the 264-MW Sta.Rita and the 382-MW Pagbilao Unit 2 power plants.
In the Visayas grid, the latest addition to power plants on outage were the 9-MW First Farmers Holding Corp., the 2.5-MW Victorias Milling Company, and the 13-MW Panay Diesel Power Plant 3-G, which all shut down on April 15.
The NGCP said the 19 power plants in the Luzon grid that are currently not operating have a total capacity of 1,811.3 MW, while the 12 power plants in the Visayas grid have a combined capacity of 414.9 MW.
There are also power plants that have derated their capacities, three of which are in the Luzon grid with a derated capacity of 306 MW, and five in Visayas with a derated capacity of 261.6 MW.
“While we continue to monitor and ask our power plant operators to work on restoring full operations, we can maximize our energy efficiency efforts as we go through this period of extreme heat. Flexible work arrangements and other conservation measures would also be helpful,” Lotilla said.
For Pagbilao Units 1 and 2 as well as Aboitiz Power Corp.'s Therma Visayas Inc. (TVI) Unit 2, the plant outages were due to a boiler leak.
"We confirm that Therma Visayas Inc. (TVI) Unit 2, a 150-MW coal plant located in Toledo, Cebu was shut down last Monday, April 15, due to a bed material leak inside the boiler. Repairs will be done to ensure safe and proper operation of the unit. The TVI team is working to restore operations by Friday, April 19," AboitizPower told reporters in a Viber message.
Meanwhile, the Manila Electric Company (Meralco) said it did not resort to any manual load dropping (MLD) this day despite announcing earlier that there might be rotating power interruptions in Metro Manila and nearby provinces.
"This is partly due to the help of our big-load customers, which collectively de-loaded around 300 MW under the interruptible load program (ILP)," Meralco said.
"We thank our partners in the private sector in embodying the spirit of bayanihan and malasakit through the ILP, which has been beneficial in ensuring continuity of electricity service particularly when supply is tight," it added. (PNA)
