First Gen ready to supply Luzon grid after interruption

MANILA, Philippines – First Gen Corp. assured the 1,000-megawatt (MW) Santa Rita Combined Cycle Power Plant would stand ready to resume supply to the Luzon grid after one transformer of the facility tripped while undergoing a one-month scheduled maintenance.

The company disclosed it is investigating a fault which occurred at the main generator transformer of Unit 20 of the Sta. Rita plant.

“Investigation is ongoing to confirm the condition of the transformer. If necessary, FGPC can immediately deploy its spare main generator transformer which is stored at the Santa Rita Power Plant site,” First Gen said.

Unit 20 is one of four units of the Santa Rita Power Plant of First Gen subsidiary First Gas Power Corp. (FGPC).

The unit is under scheduled maintenance outage from July 23 to Aug. 26 for works including maintenance activities.

Unit 20 of the Sta. Rita plant was among the nine power plants that were out when a series yellow and red alerts were raised in the Luzon grid by the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines from July 25 to 29.

A yellow alert status means that contingency reserves are below the minimum level set by the regulator but does not necessarily lead to power outages. The power reserve should be equivalent to the largest  unit of a running power plant, or in this case, the 647-MW unit of Sual power plant.

Because of this, the Department of Energy (DOE) asked the Energy Regulatory Commission to investigate whether power players employed anti-competitive behavior which led to deficient power supply during the period.

The DOE has also initiated the formation of technical audit teams which will validate the figures submitted by the generating companies and the distribution utilities which will be used in the delivery of quality, reliable, secure and affordable supply of energy.