DOE Moves to Restore Remaining Power Facilities Affected by Temblor

Wazzup Pilipinas!

In light of the most recent earthquake swarm which occurred last Saturday, the Department of Energy (DOE), is hastening to restore remaining power facilities that had been affected in Batangas.

Energy Secretary Alfonso G. Cusi today (10 April) reiterated his directive to energy players, especially power plant operators, to ensure the safe and immediate restoration of their power facilities affected by the earthquake.

Cusi emphasized the need to disaster-proof energy facilities and to apply the build-back-better principle to avert or mitigate any impact of calamities to such assets.

“We are currently on the final crafting of a policy on energy resiliency planning and programs to guide our energy industry participants to strengthen their existing infrastructure facilities, incorporate mitigation improvements into the restoration of damaged infrastructures, and improve operational and maintenance standards and practices,” said Cusi.

As of 10:00 a.m. today, the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP) reported Red Alert Status of the Luzon Grid from1:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m. following the loss of 2,905 megawatts (MW) of power supply capacities, in which 1,550 MW are due to the earthquake. The affected power plants are Avion Unit 2 (50MW), San Lorenzo Units 1 and 2 (500MW), Ilijan B (600MW) and San Gabriel (420MW).

To augment power supply, the DOE instructed the operation of Malaya Units 1 and 2 Thermal Power Plant with a combined dependable capacity of 450 MW.

Moreover, as of 10:00 a.m., there are already 135 Interruptible Load Program (ILP) participants which confirmed to run their generator sets with a total capacity of 196 MW as reported by the Manila Electric Co. (MERALCO).

Other power plants that are on outage are the following:

On Planned Outage (on Scheduled Maintenance) with total power capacities of 918 MW: Calaca Unit 1 (300MW); Pagbilao Unit 1 (382MW), Angat Auxiliary Unit 4 (6MW); Avion Unit 1 (50MW) and Magat Unit 3 and 4 (180MW).

On Forced Outage with total power capacities of 437 MW: Makban Unit 5 (55MW) due to high turbine vibration and Pagbilao Unit 2 (382MW) due to boiler tube leak.

The DOE is also closely monitoring the effect of previous events in power sector on the power rates and is coordinating with the Energy Regulatory Commission for its reasonableness.

“We would also like to advise the public to practice safety measures amid these natural calamities and to remain conscious of their use of energy, especially this summer season when energy utilization is higher than usual,” Cusi concluded.