GOVERNMENT officials and experts warned that the blackouts that crippled the islands of Panay and Guimaras could happen again unless the delayed power projects are immediately constructed, new protocols are put in place, and a more diversified mix of energy sources is embraced.
“It might happen again unless we finish all the projects on time,” said Department of Energy (DOE) Undersecretary Sharon Garin, who was referring to the delayed Cebu-Negros-Panay (CNP) backbone stage 3 project of the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP), which the system operator said would be completed by March.
“The next three months are crucial as we wait for CNP3 to be finished,” commented DOE Undersecretary Rowena Guevarra.
The CNP3, which is crucial to the full operation of the P51.3-billion Mindanao-Visayas Interconnection Project (MVIP), is delayed because of a temporary restraining order (TRO) sought by the Tourism Infrastructure and Enterprise Zone Authority (Tieza).
It was supposed to be completed in October last year. However, the construction of the Cebu-Magdugo 230kilovolt (kV) line—a component of the CNP3—was put to a halt due to the TRO issued by the Supreme Court.
The power distributor in Iloilo also gave a similar warning. MORE Electric Power Corp. President Roel Castro said that even if CNP3 is completed, Iloilo would still plunge into darkness if the 3x100MVA substation of NGCP is not commissioned by end of this year.
“One of the delayed projects for Iloilo is the 3x100mva new substation of NGCP that was supposedly commissioned last year.
“If this substation will not go online by end of this year, then for sure, Iloilo will be on rotating brownouts because there is not enough capacity from the grid connected to MORE Power’s substations in Iloilo.
“This is a small project in the scheme of all things, but if it won’t happen, we will have rotating brownouts,” said Castro.
It will take 450 days to finish the project, which indicates that it might still not be commissioned this year given that NGCP has yet to seal a deal with the land owner where the substation will be put up.
More suggestions from ICSC
The Energy Policy Team of the Institute for Climate and Sustainable Cities (ICSC), meanwhile, recommended advanced energy storage technologies, enhanced grid interconnections, and strategically integrating renewable energy (RE) sources to diversify the island’s energy portfolio as part of the long-term solutions to prevent a repeat of the four-day blackouts.
“Given the recent blackouts in Panay, a reevaluation of the island’s energy mix and grid resilience measures is imperative,” ICSC said.
Panay Island, the sixth largest island in the Philippines, suffered the same fate in April last year. Apparently, experts said the same problems were not addressed sooner.
It is still heavily reliant on power generation coming from coal, specifically the four major coal-fired power plants on the island: Panay Energy Development Corp. (PEDC) 1 providing 83.7MW, PEDC 2 with 83.7MW, PEDC 3 with 150MW, and Palm Concepcion Power Corporation (PCPC) with 135MW. Collectively, these coal plants contribute 454.4MW of power to the island’s total installed capacity. Demand, meanwhile, fluctuates between 300MW and 500MW.
ICSC noted that the Panay sub-grid is situated at the tail-end of the transmission grid in the Visayas, connected only through a submarine cable from Negros.
PEDC 3 was on maintenance shutdown when PEDC 1 conked out, resulting in only 309MW of capacity, which fell below Panay’s demand requirement. The DOE said this should have triggered the red-alert status, and any further disturbance could further push the system to the brink of its operation.
“At this point, a smart move should have been to conduct manual load dropping (MLD), as even though the system can still meet the demand requirements and the voltage and power quality were still normal as stated by NGCP, the reserves were already depleted,” said ICSC.
At 2:19 pm, another system disturbance occurred when PEDC 2 and PCPC tripped. Since the transmission link between Panay and Negros was limited, and Negros might not have had excess power to transport to Panay at the time, there was a significant lack of power generation triggering an island-wide blackout.
While the incident was mainly a power-generation problem, more issues came up that, if addressed, could have prevented the island-wide blackout.
In the DOE’s assessment, had NGCP implemented manual load dropping in the two-hour window, to which the red-alert status should have been declared on the whole island, rotating power outages could have significantly reduced the load demand requirements in Panay.
If this were the case, even with the subsequent tripping of PEDC 2 and PCPC, the remaining power sources would have been able to shoulder the reduced load demand requirements.
While the ERC conducts its probe, PEDC and NGCP are being blamed for the power mess.
ERC probe
ERC Chairperson Monalisa Dimalanta assured lawmakers during a hearing that its probe on the Western Visayas massive blackout would be concluded in a few weeks. “It is imperative that we gather all technical details,” said the ERC chief.
Senate Committee on Energy Vice Chairman Sherwin Gatchalian said ERC should pursue a deeper investigation on this and include in its probe the NGCP people who were there when all of this happened.
“We have to remember this happened last January 2. So this is pretty much after the New Year. So we have to look at all of those details in order to find out what really happened, who was involved, not only NGCP, but who in NGCP should be accountable. Is it the supervisor? Is it the operator who calls the shots at that particular time? Is that person well trained? Is that person well versed with the Grid Code? Is that person well versed with the protocols? That is something that we need to go deeper into,” Gatchalian said.
The senator reiterated that when PEDC went on an unplanned shutdown, this should have been a prompt to NGCP to reduce demand to maintain the integrity of the grid.
NGCP insisted, however, it should not be held liable for not imposing MLD, saying it simply followed protocols set by the ERC.
Citing its own records and system data, NGCP saw no abnormality in system voltage from the time between the shutdown of PEDC1 and the subsequent shutdown of PCPC.
“There was no system indication justifying a manual load drop or disconnecting end-users—households, businesses, industries—from the system to regulate voltage during the two-hour period. Had we disengaged loads without any trigger from the system, we may have also been questioned for doing so, as this clearly violates the PGC. Our actions at the time of the incident were undertaken within protocols and in compliance with established rules,” explained NGCP.
Gatchalian strongly refuted this.
“The Grid Code is very detailed. In one of those definitions, when one plant comes out, it goes into an emergency state and it goes into several protocols on what to do. One of which is to do a manual load drop, because the theory here is, since the supply is not ready but your demand is still high, you have to lower down demand,” said Gatchalian.
“But that didn’t happen so it was maintained, the demand maintained on a higher level, and that tripped other plants to go down and that created a widespread blackout. So in other words, there are protocols to follow in different states of the grid. And from the hearing yesterday, it seems to me that NGCP failed to follow those protocols that led to a widespread blackout on Panay Island,” added the senator.
Split the mandates?
Lawmakers now want to separate and transfer the systems operations function from the NGCP to another qualified entity.
“There is a compelling need for Congress to conduct an investigation with the end in view of revisiting and reviewing the franchise of the NGCP,” House Senior Deputy Majority Leader Sandro Marcos, the son of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., commented.
Gatchalian said there should be a constant performance review of NGCP, whether it’s through the legislative route or whether through the ERC route, because the ERC only steps in when something happens.
“Maybe this is something that we need to look at, instead of reacting to every constant review of the responses of NGCP by the regulator, because the assumption here is that the system operator or NGCP knows very well what to do. But obviously, we’re seeing some deficiencies in that and there should be a proactive approach in terms of reviewing the protocols,” he said.
He cautioned legislators to be very careful in their recommendation, saying Congress cannot just abruptly terminate and appoint a new entity to take over NGCP’s functions.
“There’s a contract between NGCP and the government, and of course the contract also protects the interests of NGCP. So while we can revoke the franchise, we also need to be mindful that NGCP can file cases against the government and trigger an arbitration that will create a lot of problems,” Gatchalian pointed out.
“The contract contemplated a unified model, meaning you have the system operator and the transmission network operator in one and that’s what we are paying NGCP. But if we separate them that’s in effect touching the contract.
“My view here is that government should have some presence in terms of how this system is being operated. So we need to distinguish between where the private sector can invest and where the government should maintain its role to protect public interest,” he said.
Image credits: Michael Edwards | Dreamstime,com, Arnold Almacen/Iloilo City Mayor's Office