Visayas grid in critical state but…DOE assures no outage during holiday season

CEBU, Philippines - Although the Visayas grid is currently experiencing negative reserves, the Department of Energy has assured power interruptions won’t occur during the holiday season.

Engineer J. Rey Maleza of DOE Visayas Field Office said the region’s power situation is in “critical condition” because of the current higher demand than what the grid could presently supply.  

“We are expecting negative reserves, meaning to say, our demand is more than what the plants in the Visayas grid can supply so we are on a red alert,” said Maleza, Energy Industry Management Division supervisor, in an interview yesterday.

“We are expecting the same thing will happen at the end of the year. We’re in critical condition but sobra man ang reserve sa Luzon so it can still supply us,” Maleza explained.

However, the official noted Visayas is getting power supply from Luzon to plug the gap.

In its daily power situation outlook, the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines said the region has a projected system capacity of 1,479 megawatts as of 6 a.m. yesterday.

That system capacity was lower than the expected system peak demand of 1,537 MW, bringing the reserve power to -58 MW.

The energy official further explained “the power supply can still satisfy the demand” with the help the region’s required regulating reserves which were at 63 MW as of yesterday.

In times when any power plant may shutdown, he said the contingency reserves, the power set aside for unforeseen events, serve to answer the emergency.

The DOE said power demand usually rises during the Christmas season due the increase in household and commercial energy consumption.

“Hopefully we can expect a merry holiday season kung wa lay mga unexpected events. Sa power industry, we always see to it we have reliable supply especially nga kinahanglan gyud ang power sa December,” he said.

Power plants undergo an annual maintenance repair that could take for two weeks to one month to enhance their performance.

But he assured no maintenance activities are expected throughout the end of the year.

When asked if rotational brownouts are bound to happen during the holiday period, he said “we are not expecting anything.”

Maleza also projected the Visayas would have enough power supply next year with additional generating capacity.

He added: “During the last quarter of 2015, we’re looking at being self-sufficient na without the supply from Luzon. Maka-recover na ang power supply for the Visayas.” (FREEMAN)