Power supply restored, but franchise issues still unresolved
The Luzon and Visayas power grids resumed normal operations on Saturday following several days of supply shortages that caused a blackout affecting 2.1 million consumers for at least three hours on May 13, according to the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP).
NCGP said the Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao grids are “operating under normal conditions” after several major power plants said they could deliver electricity at full capacity after they went offline on Wednesday.
The power plants included the country’s largest coal-fired power plant, GNPower Dinginin (GNPD) Unit 1, with a capacity of 668 megawatts (MW) in Mariveles, Bataan, owned by AboitizPower Corp.
READ: Red, yellow alerts lifted: Luzon, Visayas grids back to normal status
The plants also included the 1,275-MW Excellent Energy Resources Inc. (EERI) plant in Ilijan, Batangas City, consisting of three units, each with a capacity of approximately 425 MW.
The power distributor did not mention what steps would be taken after Energy Secretary Sharon Garin ordered an investigation into events that led to the May 13 blackout, but Garin said “an incident of this scale demands full technical disclosure, clear accountability and immediate corrective action.”
READ: Visayas power crisis: 3rd day of red alert as demand exceeds supply
The Manila Electric Company (Meralco) reported that about 1.9 million consumers in parts of Bulacan, Cavite, Laguna, Metro Manila, Quezon and Rizal had to undergo power outages lasting two to three hours.
NGCP reported a total of 200,000 other customers hit by blackouts across the country, purportedly due to the simultaneous collapse of transmission lines and power plants.
Failed monitoring
NGCP said the outages were triggered when 3,942.8 MW became unavailable due to forced outages at dozens of power plants, leaving the grid with insufficient reserves to meet peak demand.
But the power distributor did not explain why it did not act sooner to address supply shortages when it already knew that 17 power plants were on forced outage since the start of the month, while several others had been offline for months and years.
Another 14 plants were operating on derated capacities, resulting in a total of 4,828 MW unavailable to the Luzon grid.
Garin ordered the Grid Reliability Task Force (GRTF) to investigate the May 13 tripping of the Tayabas-Ilijan and Ilijan-Dasmariñas 500-kilovolt transmission lines operated by NGCP, renewing questions about Republic Act No. 9511, the law on the NGCP franchise.
NGCP is a privately owned consortium of three corporations, namely Monte Oro Grid Resources Corporation, Calaca High Power Corporation and the State Grid Corporation of China.
The Visayas grid also had an available capacity of 2,768 MW on Saturday against a demand of 2,339 MW.
“Barring any unexpected increase in demand or additional unplanned outages of power facilities, the power situation for this weekend is expected to remain stable,” the grid operator said.
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