The Department of Energy (DOE) said that there are no fuel supply constraints after the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) implemented yellow and red alerts over the Luzon Grid on Monday, November 28.
“We assure the public that there appear to be no fuel constraints. Some of these generating plants are on forced outage caused by power plant tripping,” Energy secretary Raphael Lotilla said in a statement to the media.
On Monday, the NGCP declared yellow alerts from 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM and 6:00 PM to 9:00 PM. The grid operator earlier declared a red alert from 5:00 PM to 6:00 PM but was lifted as of 11:30 AM today.
NGCP said that six power plants are currently on forced outage, while three others are running on derated capacities.
Data from the DOE said that the power plants that went on forced outages were Calaca 2, GNPower Mariveles 1, Sual 1, Sta. Rita Module 20, Masinloc 3, and the San Buenaventura power plants. While the Masinloc 1, Masinloc 2, and the Magat power plants were on derated capacities.
NGCP said that the current available capacity in the grid is at 11,750 megawatts (MW), while peak demand is at 10,347 MW.
“We anticipate that the Energy Regulatory Commission will also look into the root of this to prevent similar occurrence,” the DOE said.
Meanwhile, the DOE has coordinated with the Manila Electric Co. (MERALCO) to advise its interruptible load program (ILP) to be prepared with their manual load dropping as a precautionary measure.