Monday, February 1, 2010

Another round of power interruptions set to hit the Visayas

CEBU CITY -- A major geothermal power plant in Leyte was shut down on Saturday for preventive maintenance, compounding the generation deficiency caused by the lack of imported power from Luzon and the unavailability or derated capacities of some units in Cebu.
Power utilities in Cebu, Negros and Panay are bracing for a shortage of up to 200 megawatts (MW) during peak hours starting today, as the 120-megawatt Mahanagdong plant undergoes preventive maintenance for 10 days.

Impact

This means another week of rotating power interruptions of up to one hour during peak periods.

"The impact of the supply shortage will be felt starting Monday," said Belinda S. Canlas, National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP) corporate communication officer in the Visayas, in an advisory sent by text last Saturday.

"The shortage will be felt Visayas-wide, as this will be equitably distributed among the major islands and cities," Ms. Canlas explained.

The shutdown of the Mahanagdong facility and some plants in Cebu contradicted an assurance made just last December by an NGCP official that no generating plant was to undergo preventive maintenance until next month.

"They were trying to delay the preventive maintenance shutdown but it was no longer possible," Ms. Canlas explained in a telephone interview.

She declined to identify the other power plants that were unavailable or have de-rated capacities, but sources said the 50-MW Cebu Thermal Power Plant 1 run by SPC Power Corp. in Naga is out again.

Bearing the brunt

The shutdown of the Mahanagdong plant on Saturday caused a 97-MW shortage in the Visayas, as reported on the NGCP Web site.

The Visayas region, including Bohol and Leyte, had a peak load of 1071 MW that day, but available capacity reached only 975 MW on that day.

The NGCP’s power outlook yesterday showed a shortage of 82 MW in the Visayas, thin reserves of 73 MW in Mindanao and 1087-MW reserves in Luzon.

Metro Cebu and neighboring towns, which require about 600 MW during peak hours, are expected to bear the brunt of the shortage in the region.

The Visayan Electric Co., Inc. (VECO), which serves over 300,000 power users in Cebu, is usually asked to de-load two-thirds of the deficiency, explained VECO corporate communications manager Ethel T. Natera.

For a 200-MW shortage, Ms. Natera said VECO expects to be asked to drop roughly 65 MW.

So far, she said VECO has been asked to de-load 40-50MW.

No respite

Metro Cebu has had no respite from rotating one-hour power interruptions, the latest of which occurred when the 50-MW power that the Luzon grid sends to augment the supply in the Cebu-Negros-Panay grid was cut off on Jan. 19 as Luzon itself ran out of reserves then.

The Malitbog power plant, which also supplies Luzon and Cebu-Negros-Panay grids, had also been shut down then for maintenance.

VECO, however, is getting help from its customers that de-load from the system during a shortage under the interruptible load program.

As of last week, Ms. Natera said the program has shaved 21.4 MW from VECO’s system and minimized the areas affected by power interruptions during peak hours -- from 10-12 a.m., 1-3 p.m. to 5:30-8 p.m.

"More customers, including the small ones with less than 1-MW requirement, have joined the program. We are prepared to cope with the shortage," she said.

Conservation boost

VECO has also employed demand-side management to lessen the impact of the shortage by distributing 15-watt compact fluorescent light (CFL) bulbs to its customers.

As of the first week of January, Ms. Natera said they have distributed 60,000 CFL bulbs.

The target is to give out 250,000 bulbs.

In Negros, NGCP-Negros head Zosimo Briones said load-shedding will still be expected, although the privatized generating units of the National Power Corp. (Napocor) in Negros will be available.

"The preparation is on the power plant side, [meanwhile] the NGCP facilities are [in place]," he said.

Green Core Geothermal, Inc. now operates the 192.5-megawatt Palinpinon geothermal power plants in Valencia, Negros Oriental.

Central Negros Electric Cooperative (CENECO) general manager Sulpicio Lagarde, Jr. said power supply to CENECO, which serves 140,000 consumers, should not be adversely affected as it sources electricity from the Palinpinon plants.

"We are not getting power from Leyte. Right now, all of our power supply are from Palinpinon. So, there will no effect to CENECO. The immediate effect is nil," he said.

Prepared

But he said CENECO will continue to issue its daily possible load shedding schedules during peak hours either because of the de-rated capacity of a Palinpinon geothermal power plant or generation deficiency, as instructed by NGCP.

In Iloilo, the management of Panay Electric Co. (PECo), the sole power distributor in Iloilo City, said it will ask Panay Power Corp. (PPC) to make up for any shortage in the next 10 days.

Randy S. Pastolero, PECo operations manager, said Iloilo City might be affected by the shortage as the city also draws 8-15 MW from the Cebu-Negros-Panay grid.

"We will ask PPC to compensate for the lost capacity from the grid," Mr. Pastolero said.

"If they can’t, we have to rotate outages [sic]."

Power interruptions ranging from 15 minutes to four hours hit Iloilo City on Saturday after PECo replaced rotting electric posts in Molo and Iloilo City proper districts.

Iloilo City, which has a peak demand of 82 MW, draws 75 MW from PPC, a subsidiary of Metrobank Group’s Global Business Power Corp. (GBPC).

Watching

Wilfred L. Billena, general manager of Iloilo Electric Cooperative (Ileco) 1, said they have yet to know the effects of the shutdown of the Leyte geothermal plant on their system.

He said their main source of power is Palinpinon geothermal power plant in Negros and PPC in Iloilo City.

"The effects of the preventive maintenance will depend on the NGCP’s load shedding schedule," Mr. Billena said.

The power supply situation in Cebu, Negros and Panay is expected to ease by the end of February or early March with the expected commissioning of the first 82-MW coal-fired plant that Cebu Energy Development Corp. has completed in Toledo City in Cebu.

Cebu Energy is building two more 82-MW units and plans to build a fourth in anticipation of another round of power shortage by 2013.

Global Business, which partly owns Cebu Energy, is also constructing a 164-MW coal-fired power plant in LaPaz, Iloilo City.

Source: The Businessworld Online