The Luzon grid was placed on red alert Monday afternoon after seven power plants went on forced outage, while the output of three more plants were declared “derated” by the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP).
Earlier in the day, the NGCP placed the grid on yellow alert from 9am to 1pm and from 4pm to 9pm. Red alert, meanwhile, was declared from 1pm to 4pm.
“Seven power plants are on forced outage, while three others are running on derated capacities, for a total of 3,672MW (megawatts) lost from the grid,” the grid operator said in an advisory.
Further, NGCP it may implement Manual Load Dropping (MLD), or rotational brownouts, between 2 to 3pm in some parts of Baguio City, Benguet, Pampanga, Quezon, Metro Manila, Quezon, Camarines Sur, and Albay, to maintain the integrity of the power system.
However, the NGCP said scheduled power interruption could be cancelled if system condition improves, such as if actual demand falls below projections.
When NGCP reported the yellow and red alerts, Luzon’s available capacity stood at 10,727MW as against a peak demand of 10,585MW.
The Manila Electric Company (Meralco) said as of press time that it has yet to implement MLD, but has already advised Interruptible Load Program (ILP) participants of yellow and red alerts issued by the NGCP.
“As of 12 noon, we have more than 260MW committed de-loading capacity under ILP. We are still waiting for more details on the situation from NGCP and will give updates as soon as possible,” it said.
The power plants that went on forced outage are Masinloc Unit 2, Masinloc Unit 3, Sual Unit 1, Sual Unit 2, GNPower Dinginin (GNPD) Unit1, Calaca Unit2, and QPPL (Quezon Power Plant Ltd.).
The derated plants, meanwhile, are Masinloc Unit 1, SLTEC 2, and GNPower Mariveles 2. However, Masinloc 1 and SLTEC 2 have been derated since last week while GNPD1 has been out since last week.
There was an automatic load dropping (ALD)—a safety procedure wherein power is cut off at certain areas because the power supply is very low– incident last Sunday from 7:52 am to 8:37am.
According to the Manila Electric Company (Meralco), the power outage last Sunday was due to the decrease of approximately 916MW in Meralco’s load affecting over 600,000 customers in Caloocan, Makati, Manila, Muntinlupa, Paranaque, Pasay, Pasig, Pateros, Quezon City, Taguig, Bulacan, Cavite, Laguna, Rizal, and Quezon province.
Aside from these areas, ALD was also declared outside of Meralco’s franchise areas. The NGCP has yet to respond to queries if the incidents were system related.
Sources, however, said there was a “tripping of Nagsaag-Bolo 500 kV lines 1 &2 & 2 causing the activation of SIPs (System Integrity Protection Schemes) affecting Sual and Masinloc plants.
Image credits: Nonie Reyes