THE Department of Energy (DOE) on Friday said it expects thin power reserves during summer next year when demand for electricity is at its peak.
If and when this happens, the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) is likely to issue a yellow alert notice, which means that there is insufficient operating power reserve in the grid.
Based on the agency’s initial forecast, the DOE is “more worried” for the months of April to July next year versus the power situation in February, when the Malampaya Deep Water Gas-to-Project will have a scheduled maintenance shutdown work from February 4 to 18, 2023.
“We can project for now what months we will be having thin reserves, and we see that in the months of April to June. What we are looking at
are the reserves for regulating, contingency and dispatch, and we see in those three months a real possibility of yellow alerts,” said newly-appointed DOE Undersecretary Dr. Rowena Cristina Guevara, speaking partly in Filipino.
For February, she added, “we don’t see the possibility of a yellow alert that’s why we are confident about this February maintenance shutdown of Malampaya.”
Citing initial projections, the DOE said it was “more worried this summer” when demand reaches its peak as many consumers use airconditioning.
“We have already done our forecast for this year. We had a conversation with the NGCP yesterday. We could see general margin in February, so we’re not worried about this part,” said Guevara. “But we are more worried this summer, starting April to July. We have enough generation total for February even with Malampaya shutdown,” added Guevera.
The Malampaya maintenance activity has been closely coordinated with the DOE and other relevant stakeholders to ensure that the Malampaya facilities and equipment operate in a safe, reliable, and efficient manner to avoid incidents that can potentially impact the continuous supply of gas to the customer power plants.
During this period, the supply of gas will temporarily stop, and will lead the power plants to switch to alternate sources of fuel.
In an advisory to the DOE, the operator, Prime Energy, said this scheduled maintenance was originally set for October 2022. It was a follow-up scheduled maintenance to execute work planned in 2021, which were impacted by COVID travel restrictions that prevented the deployment of foreign specialists. The schedule was moved to first quarter of 2023 to avoid the 2022 typhoon season that can potentially cause start-up delays as experienced in 2021.
To ensure the continuous supply of power in February, the DOE is working with all concerned parties on several contingency measures. These include the designation of “must-run” plants; close coordination with Meralco, other distribution utilities and Retail Electricity Suppliers to activate and expand the Interruptible Load Program (ILP); for NGCP to accelerate completion of transmission lines in the Luzon grid and implement a day-ahead (6:00 PM) announcement of red and yellow alerts; encourage large users for own-use generation; and to pursue an accelerated campaign for energy efficiency and conservation for industrial, commercial, governmental, and residential consumers.
A “must-run” status means that the concerned power plant must supply electricity to the grid under all conditions.
CSP starts
Meanwhile, Meralco has commenced the Competitive Selection Process (CSP) for 480 megawatts (MW) of supply meant to address the increase in demand starting next year.
This came after the DOE approved the Terms of Reference (TOR) for the two CSPs involving Meralco’s 300-MW peaking requirement from February 26, 2023 to July 25, 2023; and 180-MW baseload supply from February 26, 2023 to February 25, 2024.
Meralco said the timely approval of the TOR would help the power distributor ensure the availability of reliable, stable, and least cost-supply for its 7.6 million customers, especially in the 2023 summer months.
The Meralco Third Party Bids and Awards Committee called on interested generation companies to participate in the CSP for the two contracts.
Submission of Expression of Interest for either contract is until January 5, 2023; and a Pre-Bid Conference will be held on January 12, 2023.
The Bid Submission Deadline for the 180-MW contract capacity and the 300-MW contract capacity is on February 1, 2023 and February 2, 2023, respectively.
DOE sees thin power reserves in summer of ’23
Source: News Paper Radio
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