Manila Electric Co., the biggest retailer of electricity, is negotiating with First Gen Corp. to buy 200 megawatts from the latter’s 414-megawatt San Gabriel natural gas plant in Batangas to ensure adequate power supply during the dry months.
“It’s still in negotiations… We have ongoing negotiations,” Meralco senior vice president and head of customer retail services, corporate marketing and communications Al Panlilio said
The 414-megawatt combined-cycle natural gas-fired San Gabriel power plant in Santa Rita, Batangas is a flexible plant designed to provide baseload, mid-merit and peaking power, depending on the grid’s demand.
The San Gabriel Flex-Plant offers daily start/stop and fast-start capability, as well as quick ramp up and ramp down of the power plant across a wide operating window—from low plant turndown to high output.
Aside from San Gabriel, Meralco has signed interim power supply agreements with Bauang 1590 Energy for 150 MW, Toledo Power Corp. for 27 MW and Panay Power Corp. for 45 MW.
Panlilio said the contracts cover until July 25, 2017.
Meralco president Oscar Reyes earlier said the interim supply agreements could go beyond the dry months up, or up to July.
“Because it’s for summer, hopefully approvals will come in because it’s going to give assurance of better supply at very competitive prices,” Reyes said.
Meralco regularly secures interim agreements when the supply is tight and demand is high.
The Energy Department expects power supply to become tight for some weeks in May in the Luzon grid.
Energy Undersecretary Felix William Fuentebella, however, assured while power supply might be lower in some weeks, there would no yellow alerts or brownouts.
Fuentebella said power supply could start to dip during the week of April 22 to 28 and up to June 3 to 9.
Power demand usually goes up due to to hotter temperatures during the dry months while the output of hydro power plants are curtailed, thus affecting overall power supply.
“It will not reach yellow alert (during the said weeks) but it will become critical if some power plants go on unscheduled maintenance or there are line tripping,” Fuentebella said.
Energy data showed two weeks in May would have lower reserve levels for the Luzon grid, specifically May 13 to 19 and May 20 to May 26, when the gross reserves were estimated at 1,859 MW and 1,892 MW, respectively.
Available capacity for the Luzon grid is expected to reach 11,589 MW for May 13 to 19 and 11,492 MW for May 20 to May 26 compared with the demand of 9,730 MW and 9,620 MW, respectively.
Fuentebella urged consumers to manage their consumption to mitigate the impact of the anticipated higher rates during the dry months.
Data, meanwhile, showed supply in the Visayas grid would become tight starting June with reserves dropping to 190 MW in June 3 to 9 and 146 MW from June 10 to June 16.
“Visayas grid is interconnected with Luzon grid so we can import power from Luzon,” Fuentebella said.
He said Mindanao would have adequate power supply during the dry months. Mindanao’s power reserves are estimated at their lowest from June 3 to June 9 at 884 MW.