Rotating brownouts to persist for a week according to grid operator NGCP
Residents in Luzon will be plagued by rotational brownouts until June 7, barring any unforeseen events, as a number of power plants that suddenly went offline are not expected to be back until then.
“We foresee sustained grid alert status for the next few days until Monday, June 7, because of thinning power supplies,” Cynthia Alabanza, spokesperson of the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP), said today in a virtual press conference.
Officials from the NGCP, the private concessionaire of the country’s power grids, said the power outages happened as power reserves were wiped out after power plants went on unscheduled shutdown at a time of high demand.
According to data released by the Department of Energy today, four plants with a combined capacity of 1,637 megawatts (MW) are currently on an unscheduled outage. Of these, the most recent was the 345 MW coal-fired GN Power Mariveles Unit 2, which went offline today, June 1, due to a “boiler tube leak.” The largest plant that tripped is the 647 MW coal-fired Sual Unit 2, which went out May 16.
According to DOE’s schedule, GN Power’s Unit 2 is expected to be back on June 8.
But aside from the unplanned outages, three plants with a combined capacity of 435 MWs are also on scheduled maintenance until June 13.
“Mataas yung demand, manipis yung reserba to the point na pag may nag-trip na planta, it’s either we go to yellow alert or if the deficit is high, we go to red alert status. We have no choice but to implement manual load dropping,” said NGCP Luzon systems operations head Reynaldo Abadilla.
“We could normalize on June 8 but that will still depend on whether they have already fixed the power plants,” Abadilla added.
As of 1pm today, NGCP data showed that the Luzon grid was short of 510 MWs with a 11,322 MW capacity that was outstripped by an 11,832 MW peak demand.
Alabanza said that they will announce the schedule of their manual load dropping (MLD), which leads to rotating brownouts in affected areas, on an hourly basis.
“Supply and demand changes every hour so we announce at the top of the hour, because there are many factors that contribute also including weather… We are also dependent on the information we get from the different power plants,” Alabanza said.
The latest MLD schedule of NGCP, which posts updates on its Facebook page, is in the following areas today:
4:00-5:00PM:
LUECO (parts of La Union)
LUELCO (parts of La Union and Ilocos Sur)
AEC (parts of Angeles City)
QUEZELCO I (parts of Quezon)
CANORECO (parts of Camarines Norte)
MERALCO (parts of Metro Manila)
Meralco, which also updates schedules via its Facebook page, has also announced the schedule this afternoon:
3:00 PM to 5:00 PM
CAVITE PROVINCE
Bacoor City
Habay I, Habay II, Mabolo I and Mabolo III
Imus City
Pag-Asa III
Kawit
Balsahan-Bisita, Batong Dalig, Binakayan-Aplaya, Binakayan-Kanluran, Congbalay-Legaspi, Gahak, Kawit Town Proper, Magdalo, Manggahan-Lawin, Marulas, Panamitan, Pulvorista, Samala-Marquez, Santa, Isabel, Tabon I, Tabon II, Tabon III, Toclong and Tramo-Bantayan
METRO MANILA
Makati City
Bel-Air, Guadalupe Viejo, Poblacion, Carmona, Kasilawan, Olympia, Tejeros, San Lorenzo and Pio Del Pilar
Manila City
Binondo, San Nicolas, Tondo and Sta. Cruz
Marikina City
Calumpang and San Roque
Muntinlupa City
New Alabang Village and Alabang
Paranaque
Tambo
Pasay City
Pasig City
Dela Paz, Manggahan, Santolan, San Antonio, Ugong
Taguig City
Fort Bonifacio
Rizal Province
Antipolo City
Mayamot
Cainta
San Isidro