Power firms promise stable supply in summer

The 735-MW Pagbilao coal-fired thermal power plant’s maintenance schedule would be postponed as part of efforts to ease the tightness in power supply this summer, the Department of Energy said on Wednesday. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines—The Department of Energy (DOE) said Wednesday the 735-MW Pagbilao coal-fired thermal power plant’s maintenance schedule would be postponed as part of efforts to ease the tightness in power supply this summer.

Mylene Capongcol, DOE director for the electric power industry management bureau, said in an interview that department officials met with power plant operators on what measures could be taken to address the power situation and among the major agreements was the deferment of Pagbilao’s maintenance schedule.

Capongcol said the DOE was in the process of formalizing the agreement with Team Energy Corp. on the plant’s deferred maintenance. “The operator agreed in principle to move the 30-day maintenance schedule to start on June 15.” By that time, Capongcol said the power situation would have eased. The original schedule was to start the maintenance shutdown on May 28. Team Energy’s power facility is located on Isla Grande in Pagbilao, Quezon.

Capongcol said the overall result of the talks with generation firms was that they agreed to help keep supply stable this summer when reserve power margins were expected to be tight amid high demand for cooling and dampened performance of hydroelectric power plants.

Since mid-2013, the DOE has been saying that there might be tightness in the power supply in Luzon unless more capacity was added to the grid or electricity demand was tempered.

This summer, several plants will go offline for maintenance. The Ilijan plant of Kepco Philippines Corp., which can produce up to 1,200 MW, started maintenance shutdown this month. Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) had apparently asked Ilijan and Pagbilao to both defer their schedules—set a year ago—but Ilijan could no longer defer its maintenance work.

“We don’t want to risk the plant getting damaged,” Capongcol said.

Team Energy is the joint venture of Japanese firms Tokyo Electric Power Co. and Marubeni Corp. The company operates the Pagbilao plant and other generating facilities acquired from US-based Mirant Corp. in 2007.