First Gen’s 414-MW power plant in Batangas now back online

First Gen Corp. said it had brought back online on Monday its 414-megawatt (MW) San Gabriel combined cycle power plant in Batangas, after having been out of commission since September 2020.

Operated by First NatGas Power Corp., a wholly owned subsidiary of First Gen, San Gabriel went offline after sustaining damage when the plant tripped five months ago.

“[The] plant was successfully restarted and placed online [on] Feb. 15 as part of planned ongoing recommissioning activities,” the parent firm said.

“The recommissioning activities are scheduled to last for up to three days and are necessary to confirm that the San Gabriel plant is performing as designed, before it resumes normal commercial operations,” First Gen said.

The company touts San Gabriel as “the most efficient natural gas-fired plant in the Philippines.”

San Gabriel started operations in November 2016, and started selling to Manila Electric Co. in 2018 through a six-year supply contract.

If San Gabriel resumes delivery to the grid, it will boost the operating margin of the Luzon grid. According to National Grid Corp. of the Philippines, Luzon is expected to have throughout this week more generating capacity than the expected peak demand of 9,310 MW.

Last September, an initial investigation by specialists from Siemens Power Operations Inc. indicated there was an electrical fault in the generator. Thus, San Gabriel was declared unavailable for dispatch. INQ