Team Energy unit Team Sual Corporation (TSC) and Semirara Mining and Power Corporation’s Southwest Luzon Power Generation Corporation (SLPGC) were collectively fined close to Php5 million after the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) found their power plants to have gone over their forced outage days limit.
TSC, which operates the 1,294-megawatt (MW) Sual coal plant in Pangasinan, was particularly fined Php787,200 for the excessive outage of Unit 1 and Php4.008 million for Unit 2.
Unit 1 had 10.68 unplanned outage days, while Unit 2 went over the limit by 96.2 days. Coal plants are only allowed a maximum of 16.8 days in forced outages annually.
According to TSC, Unit 1 went on its annual maintenance shutdown from December 28, 2020 to January 26, 2021 and was on unplanned outage only from January 27 to 28 this year. However, the ERC counted the generator’s outages from January 3 to March 22 as unplanned. Unit 2’s forced shutdowns, meanwhile, happened from January 3 to April 2 this year.
For its part, SLPGC was penalized only Php100,000. The 150MW Unit 2 of its coal plant in Calaca, Batangas registered only 0.54 days in excessive forced outages since the 16.9-day limit offset the 17.44 cumulative days in unplanned shutdowns between January 3 and April 25.
Last week, the ERC slapped over Php6 million in fines on three other power generating companies (gencos), also for excessive unplanned outages. The three firms, together with TSC and SLPGC, are among the 17 gencos the ERC probed for breaching their plants’ forced shutdown limit.
Photo of Sual coal plant from Team Energy website.
Photo of SLPGC coal plant Spec-Master, Inc. website.