STEAG restarts power plant

MANILA, Philippines - STEAG State Power Inc. has completed and resumed the operations of a 105-megawatt (MW) unit of its coal-fired power plant in Misamis Oriental.

The resumption of its operations is expected to lessen the power outage in electricity-starved Mindanao, the firm said in a statement.

STEAG said Unit 1, which was shut down on Oct. 6, became operational on Nov. 4, increasing available electricity in Mindanao by 105 MW.

“The operation of Unit 1 is expected to improve the precarious power supply condition of Mindanao,” STEAG said.

Prior to Unit 1’s operation, Mindanao suffered from 30 minutes to four hours of rotating blackouts due to supply shortfall.

The 105-MW Unit 2 scheduled a maintenance shutdown on Oct. 29 to Nov. 10.

“The preventive maintenance has been carried out as planned and approved by the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines,” STEAG said.

STEAG added that it will bring in long-term benefits to the Mindanao power consumers in terms the power plant’s operational reliability.

It was the first time for STEAG to conduct a preventive maintenance shutdown after six years of full commercial operations since November 2006.

So far, the company has delivered more than 8.3 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity representing about 20 percent of Mindanao’s total power supply. STEAG is into the construction, operation and maintenance of Mindanao’s first coal-fired power plant.