DOE: Red, yellow alerts seen in Luzon due to power plants maintenance

The Department of Energy (DOE) on Thursday warned that power supply in Luzon may fall under yellow or red alert levels due to preventive maintenance shutdown of some power plants.

The yellow to red alerts may be encountered starting this week after the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) gave the green light on the maintenance of Ilijan and Pagbilao powerplants, Mario Marasigan, DOE Electric Power Industry Management Bureau director told the Senate energy committee during the continuation of hearing on the rotational brownout in the region.

“We can see that there are probable red alerts that we will encounter starting this week, which is week 24,” he said.

The maintenance of the two power plants will be done simultaneously with GMEC Unit 1 in Mariveles and Sual Unit 1 in Pangasinan.

“In the coming weeks up to the 30th week, there will be simultaneous preventive maintainance of GMEC Unit 1, which is still on extended outage, the Sual Unit 1, which started preventive maintenance for the week of 28, the Ilijan Block A that will start on June 24, and at the same time Pagbilao, which also started its preventive maintenance,” Marasigan said.

The DOE official said the simultaneous maintenance works will "definitely" pose a problem.

“So having these numerous plants conducting their preventive maintenance on the forthcoming weeks, then definitely there's a potential that we will noy not just have yellow alert but red alert,” he said.

Asked by the panel chairperson Senator Sherwin Gatchalian if there will be another series of brownouts in Luzon, Marasigan said they are not quick to decide on the implementation of rotational brownouts as they are preparing measures to prevent power outages.

“Hindi po namin agad nire-relay na brownout ‘yun pong red alert kasi meron naman po tayong ibang measures na ginagawa para po ma-prevent yung rotational brownouts,” he said.

(We do not relay information that the red alert will automatically cause brownouts because we are still implementing measures to prevent rotational brownouts.)

"The Department of Energy is on aggressive mode of promoting energy efficiency and conservation," he added.

Marasigan said the DOE has already requested government offices to impose 10 percent reduction in their power consumption.

Early this June, the NGCP has implemented rotational brownouts due to thin power supply resulting from planned and unplanned outages of several power plants.

This prompted the energy committees both in the Senate and at the House of Representatives to hold separate inquiries on the power supply in Luzon.—LDF, GMA News