Power plants, firms in Visayas under scrutiny amid successive red alerts

CEBU CITY, Philippines – Following successive red alerts and yellow alerts that resulted in power interruptions, power companies and plants in the Visayas have been placed under scrutiny.

Energy Secretary Sharon Garin on Tuesday, August 11, announced that the Power Bureau of the Department of Energy (DOE) began conducting initial assessments at various generating facilities in the region to identify issues with performance and reliability.

“Our objective is to minimize unscheduled and prolonged plant outages, strengthen long-term grid stability, and make clear that comes with accountability,” Garin said.

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As of August 12, a total of five red alerts have been issued by the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) for the Visayas grid.

Red alert, in energy, means that both supply and reserves can no longer meet demand. To prevent overall grid collapse, grid operators usually implement manual load dropping (MLD) such as rotational brownouts.

Usually, red alerts are issued in the summer due to higher-than-usual demand as consumers use appliances to cool down.

But lately, the prolonged forced outages of Visayas’ largest coal-fired power plants have been blamed as one of the major contributors behind the region’s power crunch.

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Compounding this problem is the reduced power imports from Mindanao and the isolation of Units 1 and 2 of the Cebu Energy Development Corp. when transmission lines within the vicinity of Daanbantayan, Cebu tripped.

“When government grants a company the privilege to participate in our sector, we expect that company to deliver on its commitments and comply with the standards and conditions that come with that privilege. Hindi po yan regalo (That is not a gift). It is a privilege,” said Garin.

Ancillary services

Meanwhile, DOE has directed the NGCP to fast-track the completion of contracts that will allow the latter to inject 250 MW of battery energy storage systems (BESS) to the Visayas grid.

“Kasi kung wala yung kontrata, hindi siya makakapasok sa grid, and tuloy-tuloy po ang pagsuffer ng mga taga-Visayas and probably Mindanao also,” explained Energy Usec. Mario Marasigan.

(Because there is no contract, it cannot enter the grid, and those in the Visayas and probably those in Mindanao also will continue to suffer.)

On the other hand, the national government said they continued to develop a ‘comprehensive master plan’ to address lingering power problems in the Visayas.

This will include assessments of generation facilities regarding their supply reliability and compliance with maintenance programs.

DOE likewise said it is also working on bringing in power barges over the next two years to provide additional energy capacity to the region, and to prioritize upgrades and establish new transmission projects such as the Luzon-Visayas and Visayas-Mindanao interconnections.

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