Yellow and red alerts

There is obviously something seriously wrong with our power supply situation. Last Saturday evening, we had yellow and red alerts in the Luzon Grid. Some areas in Luzon including the Meralco franchise area (two million customers affected) suffered power outages. It is surprising and worrisome. It happened on a lazy Saturday evening when there should have been more than enough off-peak power supply.

Actually, I have noticed that the growing number of yellow and red alerts are not just about inability to meet peak demand but now often extends to non-peak times of the day. Has the demand pattern drastically changed and we now have peak demand the whole day and well into the night? Wait until more of those data centers start operations because they really use up a lot of power 24/7.

The problem appears to be supply. We have old unreliable coal power plants that we still depend on for baseload. As of now, only the First Gas power plants of the Lopezes and Ilijan of San Miguel produce electricity from natural gas, Malampaya. Hopefully, we will be able to complete those natgas receiving facilities and sign supply contracts before Malampaya runs out or that’s one more problem that could plunge us into darkness.

Unfortunately, DOE is too committed to variable renewable energy (VRE) or essentially solar and wind. Of the 4,162.98 MW new power projects going online this year, only 1,851.22 MW can be used for baseload: 450 MW of coal; 1,320 MW of natgas; 81.22 MW of geothermal. Most of the projects are RE: 2,883.22 MW. That's broken down to 72.16 MW for mini hydro; 75.28 MW for biomass; 1,985.78 MW of solar and 160 MW of wind. Storage battery is 590 MW.

On paper, we are getting the impression that DOE is replacing the old coal power plants with VREs. But a megawatt of solar is not the same as a megawatt of coal or geothermal or natgas for grid stability.

Solar and wind are unpredictable. Their electricity generation does not always match the peak demand hours. The intermittency of sunshine and wind cannot provide an on-demand power source 24 hours a day. What do we do when heavy dark clouds of monsoon rains known as siyam siyam (that lasts for more than a week) hits us?

We are now seeing in the Visayas that too much solar in Negros is causing what the power folks there call a “traffic jam” crowding out the ancillary power from Cebu needed to prevent a brownout in Iloilo. That's because our law demands priority dispatch for solar.

Here are the details of the problem last Saturday that caused the red alert and brownouts.

“Manual load dropping resulting in brown out is rotated where needed.  Ilijan went on emergency shutdown after getting back online after the storm.  Pagbilao also:  Please be informed that the Luzon Grid is on *RED Alert* for interval hours 1400H-2400H (1:00pm - 12:00mn) and YELLOW Alert for interval hours 1200H-1300H.“Plants on forced outage are Bataan 2020 (13 MW); Salangan Hydro (2.4 MW); Clean Green (10.8 MW); NIA (6 MW); Lafarge 1 (6 MW); Malaya 2 (300 MW), Pantabangan 1&2 (120 MW); MGC-Butao (1.3 MW); QPPL (460 There is obviously something seriously wrong with our power supply situation. Last Saturday evening, we had yellow and red alerts in the Luzon Grid. Some areas in Luzon including the Meralco franchise area (two million customers affected) suffered power outages. It is surprising and worrisome. It happened on a lazy Saturday evening when there should have been more than enough off-peak power supply.

Actually, I have noticed that the growing number of yellow and red alerts are not just about inability to meet peak demand but now often extends to non-peak times of the day. Has the demand pattern drastically changed and we now have peak demand the whole day and well into the night? Wait until more of those data centers start operations because they really use up a lot of power 24/7.

The problem appears to be supply. We have old unreliable coal power plants that we still depend on for baseload. As of now, only the First Gas power plants of the Lopezes and Ilijan of San Miguel produce electricity from natural gas, Malampaya. Hopefully, we will be able to complete those natgas receiving facilities and sign supply contracts before Malampaya runs out or that’s one more problem that could plunge us into darkness.

Unfortunately, DOE is too committed to variable renewable energy (VRE) or essentially solar and wind. Of the 4,162.98 MW new power projects going online this year, only 1,851.22 MW can be used for baseload: 450 MW of coal; 1,320 MW of natgas; 81.22 MW of geothermal. Most of the projects are RE: 2,883.22 MW. That's broken down to 72.16 MW for mini hydro; 75.28 MW for biomass; 1,985.78 MW of solar and 160 MW of wind. Storage battery is 590 MW.

On paper, we are getting the impression that DOE is replacing the old coal power plants with VREs. But a megawatt of solar is not the same as a megawatt of coal or geothermal or natgas for grid stability.

Solar and wind are unpredictable. Their electricity generation does not always match the peak demand hours. The intermittency of sunshine and wind cannot provide an on-demand power source 24 hours a day. What do we do when heavy dark clouds of monsoon rains known as siyam siyam (that lasts for more than a week) hits us?

We are now seeing in the Visayas that too much solar in Negros is causing what the power folks there call a “traffic jam” crowding out the ancillary power from Cebu needed to prevent a brownout in Iloilo. That's because our law demands priority dispatch for solar.

Here are the details of the problem last Saturday that caused the red alert and brownouts.

“Manual load dropping resulting in brown out is rotated where needed.  Ilijan went on emergency shutdown after getting back online after the storm.  Pagbilao also:  Please be informed that the Luzon Grid is on *RED Alert* for interval hours 1400H-2400H (1:00pm - 12:00mn) and YELLOW Alert for interval hours 1200H-1300H.

“Plants on forced outage are Bataan 2020 (13 MW); Salangan Hydro (2.4 MW); Clean Green (10.8 MW); NIA (6 MW); Lafarge 1 (6 MW); Malaya 2 (300 MW), Pantabangan 1&2 (120 MW); MGC-Butao (1.3 MW); QPPL (460 MW); GFI (15.8 MW); Pagbilao U1 (382 MW); Pagbilao U2 (382 MW); Avion 2 (46 MW); Limay 7 (60 MW); St. Rita 20 (257 MW); Angat Main (200 MW); Kalayaan 1 (180 MW); Kalayaan 3 (180 MW); Ilijan A (600 MW); Ilijan B (600 MW). Total outage: 3,822.3 MW.

“Plants with de-rated capacities are Masinloc 1 (230 MW); Masinloc 2 (320 MW) Masinloc 3 (325 MW); Limay 8 (60 MW) GNPD 2 (640 MW); Calaca 2 (220 MW) Sual 1 300 (MW). Total derated: 642 MW.

“Demand reduction allocation: 1400H-2400H.”

As for the Visayas, they had been having these yellow and red alerts over the past weeks too. And the demand-supply in Mindanao has drastically changed with El Niño increasing demand. Excess capacity is now at just 100MW when in the past, excess can go as high as 800 MW.

Imagine a repetition of the red alert last Saturday evening when the Luzon Grid lost over 4000 MW from power plants going on forced outage or running on derated capacity. If that happens after the 2883 MW of solar power goes on line this year, where will we go for backup?

The proper backups should be dependable power plants using coal or natgas or storage hydro (if not dried out by El Nino). Geothermal too but we have limited supply. We all know solar is out at night unless it has battery back-up which makes the cost of solar power not as cheap as claimed. Most of those solar plants going on stream do not have battery back-ups.

And because our officials have tried very hard to be woke, they demonized coal to the point that it is difficult for coal plant proponents to get financing and insurance. Because we need them, the government may have to provide the financing and insurance to some of the already approved coal power plant projects that are now having problems getting off the ground. Priority dispatch of VRE exposes new coal plant investors to market risks that effectively tells them to go away.

But there is good news. I am told that San Miguel’s new 1,320 MW combined cycle power plant beside the 1,200 MW Ilijan natgas plant will go on stream as scheduled from August to October this year. This will be a big help in meeting summer peak demand of about 15,000 MW. If we include at least 30 percent minimum reserve, we need 19,500 MW capacity. We can only pray for good weather unless we get more reliable power sources than VREs.

Otherwise, forget attracting foreign investors. They want reliable and cheap power, neither of which we have. We will just watch our neighbors get all the investments from Apple, Google, etc. who are moving to Malaysia, Indonesia and Vietnam. We can also watch our BPOs lose clients if we can’t assure 24/7 power supply. We are so frustratingly third world.

Boo Chanco’s email address is [email protected]. Follow him on X @boochanco