The Department of Energy said over the weekend the Panay power supply is expected to improve this month with the completion of the Cebu-Negros-Panay transmission upgrade and the end of Palm Concepcion Power Corp.’s regular maintenance shutdown.
The DOE made the statement after the Panay-sub-grid suffered a partial blackout on March 1 after a coal plant went on forced shutdown.
“In the meantime, the DOE reiterates the need for cooperation among the generators, distribution utility and the system operator in Panay,” the agency said in a statement.
“The general public is also encouraged to conserve energy while we await the completion of the transmission upgrade and maintenance of PCPC by the end of March,” the DOE said.
It said short-term solutions by the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines as the system operator such as using 10-percent head room of the large coal plants as contingency reserve were in place.
“Long-term solutions, such as the energization of several renewable and conventional power plants and the completion of transmission projects to support the power generation projects and the growth of the load centers are in the pipeline,” it said.
It said Panay Island is powered by four coal power plants with a total capacity of 451 megawatts (MW) and nine diesel/bunker and renewable facilities with a total capacity of 220.3 MW.
The coal power plants consist of three units of Panay Energy Development Corp. (PEDC) and one unit of PCPC. An additional capacity of 180 MW can be drawn from Negros to Panay through a submarine cable.
The DOE said while the total demand of Panay Island is below 400 MW, the PCPC is under regular maintenance shutdown until March 30, 2024.
It said three units of PEDC went on shutdown on March 1 at 6:59 p.m., resulting in a partial blackout of the Panay sub-grid and some parts of Negros.
Around 80 MW of the power demand of Panay was served initially by the Negros-Panay submarine cable and later by the smaller power plants on the island.
The PEDC unit was synchronized back to the grid on March 2.
Meanwhile, NGCP denied that the tripping of any of its facilities caused the current partial blackout in Negros and Panay.
It said its transmission assets did not trip or register a disturbance prior to the successive generator shutdowns despite a recent fire.
NGCP said what initiated the partial blackout was the tripping of the largest plant in Panay, PEDC 3 with a 150-MW capacity, which was closely followed by the tripping of the rest of the power plants on the island.
