The Department of Energy (DOE) called on the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) to fulfill its responsibility as the System Operator (SO) in guaranteeing supply security and dependability of the grid.
This was in response to the NGCP’s alerts that the power plants on Panay Island, including the Palm Concepcion Power Corporation (PCPC), which has a capacity of 135 MW, and Panay Energy Development Corporation (PEDC) Units 1 and 2, which has 83 MW each, experienced several trippings yesterday due to grid voltage imbalance.
“NGCP is in a position to anticipate system disturbance such as what happened yesterday, which unfortunately resulted in the isolation of Panay from the rest of the Visayas grid due to the simultaneous tripping of power plants that caused multiple power interruptions affecting other power plants and distribution utilities (DUs),” said Energy Undersecretary Rowena Cristina Guevara.
In a statement, NGCP said the trippings in the three largest power-generating units on the island, coupled with the scheduled maintenance shutdown of the 150 MW PEDC Unit 3, resulted in a loss of 451 MW. This represented 68.75% of the total 656 MW in in-island generation for the Panay sub-grid.
Earlier, the NGCP said that it would restore loads cautiously, saying “by matching loads to restored generation, to prevent repeated voltage failure. NGCP is ready to transmit power once it is available. The people must understand that we can only transmit power, we do not generate power,”
With this, the DOE believes that NGCP should immediately come together with other plants to guarantee that their control setting would not cause the grid more fluctuations that could eventually lead to blackouts.
Currently, the energy department is in coordination with the NGCP, the impacted power plants, and distribution utilities to assess the status of the power plants, including the restoration of the power supply.
As of 5:00 PM on Wednesday, Panay power plants were providing 203 MW of power to the grid, with other sources in Visayas providing 24.6 MW, for a total of 224 MW. Around 300 MW is required for the system to stabilize, and PCPC is still waiting to be linked back to the grid.
