Delayed San Miguel, NGCP projects to blame for Luzon outages, says DOE
MANILA -Timely completion of crucial but delayed power projects across the country could have prevented the widespread power interruptions experienced by households in Luzon on Monday, the Department of Energy (DOE) said.
Rowena Guevara, undersecretary of the DOE, told reporters on Tuesday that pending power projects—such as the 1,200-megawatt (MW) Ilijan gas-fired plant in Batangas province and the 600-MW Hermosa-San Jose Line in Bataan province—should have been completed earlier to shield customers from power interruptions triggered by red alerts.
“This is unfortunate because it would have been acceptable if the delay was only until before summer [this year], but then it extended, that’s why we still have this situation,” Guevara said.
The Ilijan plant has been offline since June last year due to cessation of supply deliveries from the depleting Malampaya gas field, but it is set to resume operations by May 26.
Meanwhile, the Hermosa-San Jose Line’s original completion date was set in December 2022 but this was further delayed to this year.
On Monday afternoon, the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP) raised a red alert status in the Luzon grid due to the tripping, or shutting down, of the Bolo-Masinloc 230-kilovolt Line 2, which stretches from the provinces of Pangasinan to Zambales.
As a result, this halted supply coming from Masinloc Units 1 and 2, which have a combined capacity of 618 megawatts (MW). The outage affected at least 300,000 customers in Luzon.
A yellow alert was subsequently raised in Visayas due to reduced supply generated in Luzon.
According to the DOE, the NGCP cited heavy rains and lightning that supposedly hit the transmission line.
Guevara also noted that delays in the full-capacity operation of the recently energized Mindanao-Visayas Interconnection Project (MVIP) may have contributed to the power interruptions.
“If the MVIP had been finished, then Mindanao could have assisted. Mindanao only uses 70 percent of its supply,” she said.
Earlier this month, NGCP said an initial load of 22.5 MW was carried by a high-voltage submarine cable and overhead lines from Mindanao to Visayas through the MVIP.
The full capacity of the P52-billion project is 450 MW, but the NGCP said it could not run on full capacity due to pending completion of transmission lines. It added that 100-percent MVIP operation was expected in July.
“If the transmission lines were completed, then these could have allowed more power to flow into Luzon,” Guevara added.
Energy Secretary Raphael Lotilla, meanwhile, said the DOE and other agencies had assisted the NGCP, the private firm operating and developing the government’s power grid, to fast-track the completion of long-delayed transmission projects to free up stranded supply.
He added, however: “Notwithstanding these efforts, these projects still have not been completed. The power interruption experienced [on Monday] had been traced principally to inadequacies in the transmission system.”
For its part, NGCP said it was coordinating with the Masinloc power plant and other grid-connected generating plants “on the way forward and to ensure that protection settings are in sync between generating plants and NGCP.”
While both the NGCP and power distributor Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) assured consumers that power had been fully restored in affected areas, another outage occurred on Tuesday afternoon.
Meralco announced on its social media pages that a “temporary system imbalance due to a sudden plant outage” resulted in 10- to 15-minute power interruptions in its concession area.
Power supply in affected areas, which the company has yet to reveal, was restored at 3:57 p.m. on Tuesday, Meralco said.
NGCP, however, has not confirmed which plants experienced unscheduled outages as of this writing.
In a statement on Tuesday, Meralco said automatic load dropping occurred due to the tripping of the Duhat-Hermosa 230-kV Line in Bataan province.
This affected more than 200,000 Meralco customers in parts of Paco and Sta. Mesa in Manila; Caloocan and Malabon cities; Antipolo in Rizal; Batangas; San Pedro and Binan in Laguna province; and San Rafael and Pulilan in Bulacan.
