The series of “yellow alerts” declared by National Grid Corporation of the Philippines in Luzon shows the vulnerability of the island’s power supply.
The grid operator again placed the entire grid on yellow alert Thursday after some power plants went on an unplanned outage, joining those that have already scheduled their maintenance shutdown and others which reduced their generating capacity.
A yellow alert is declared if the power reserves drop below the minimum level set by the grid operator, which is about 624 megawatts of electricity. The unplanned shutdown of some power plants and the reduced capacity of the other stations slashed the available reserves by 150 MW.
A yellow alert implies thinner reserves and does not necessarily lead to power outages, compared with a red alert in which the electricity supply is deficient and which results in brownouts.
But the government, especially the Department of Energy, should review its current policy on power plants to minimize yellow alerts. Manila Electric Co. president Oscar Reyes said yellow alerts were a “reality” and showed the weakness of the Luzon grid.
The Meralco executive noted that the series of yellow alerts in the Luzon grid since late August underscored the need for additional power capacities to meet the increasing demand. “I think it just shows potential vulnerability of the entire system and you’re better with adequate capacity. If we cut it too thinly, and there are a bit delays, then we’re going into a situation as we move to 2019 to 2022,” said Reyes.
Power plants take at least three years to build and with local government units and self-proclaimed environment groups contributing to the delay in their construction, the electricity supply may be outstripped by demand sooner or later.
Aging power plants and those suffering chronic breakdowns should be taken off from the list of base-load units to encourage the construction of more modern and efficient stations. Consumers bear the brunt of power outages, while the economy takes a direct hit when productivity slows down.