The Department of Energy said Friday it is more worried over Luzon grid’s thin power reserves in the dry months starting April on increasing demand at the onset of higher temperature.
Energy Undersecretary Rowena Cristina Guevara said in a briefing the DOE was “more worried” about supply in the dry months of April to July 2023, than in February when the Malampaya deep water gas-to-power project in northwest Palawan would undergo a 15-day regular maintenance shutdown.
“We are more worried in summer, starting April up to July. That’s where we are a little bit worried. We can say we have enough generation margin for the month of February even if Malampaya is down,” Guevara said in a briefing.
She said the DOE was looking at the status of the power reserves in the next dry months, “and we see in those months the possibility of yellow alerts.”
Grid operator National Grid Corp. of the Philippines declares a yellow alert when there is insufficient operating power reserve.
Energy Secretary Raphael Lotilla said the DOE was hoping that the power plants would be available during the dry months. “We are hoping that somehow the plants will be available, and what will refer to as the stranded power, power that is already available like those in Bataan, will be delivered to the Luzon grid,” Lotilla said.
The Hermosa-San Jose 500-kV transmission line in Bataan province is expected to be completed by the end of March 2023.
“For February, we don’t see the possibility of a yellow alert, so we are confident about the February maintenance shutdown of Malampaya,” said Guevara.
DOE said the Malampaya maintenance schedule had been closely coordinated with energy stakeholders to ensure that Malampaya facilities and equipment operate in a safe, reliable, and efficient manner to avoid accidents that can potentially impact the continuous supply of gas to client power plants.
The DOE said that during this period, the gas supply to the Batangas plants would lead power plants to switch to alternate sources of fuel.
Prime Energy Energy Resources Development B.V., operator of the Malampaya project, said in an advisory to the DOE the scheduled maintenance was originally set for October 2022. It was supposed to be a follow-up maintenance operation to execute work planned in 2021, which was affected by COVID travel restrictions that prevented the deployment of foreign specialists.
The schedule was moved to the first quarter of 2023 to avoid the 2022 typhoon season that could potentially cause start-up delays as experienced in 2021.
Lotilla said the Malampaya shutdown could be moved again, and the DOE prepared the contingency plan for the Malampaya shutdown with the stakeholders. Contingency measures include designating “must-run” plants to ensure steady supply of electricity under all conditions.
The DOE said it was also in close coordination with Manila Electric Co., other distribution utilities and retail power suppliers for the activation of interruptible load program plans.
The DOE, through NGCP, is also accelerating the completion of transmission line work in the Luzon grid.
The Malampaya project is considered a world-class upstream facility which demonstrated high safety performance and high operational reliability, enabled by its regular maintenance activities.