Power deficit seen next yr due to forced outages

MANILA, Philippines - Unplanned or forced outages among the country’s aging power plants, which are becoming more frequent, are expected to result in a power deficiency of 600 megawatts to 950 MW in the summer of 2015, Energy Secretary Carlos Jericho Petilla said over the weekend.

Taking this into account, the Department of Energy (DOE) estimates a bigger power shortfall compared to the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP), the grid operator, Petilla said.

He said the NGCP does not count forced outages in its supply and demand forecast in contrast to the DOE’s estimates.

“The forced outages will range anywhere from 600 MW to 950 MW in the summer of 2015. In a perfect world, there are no forced outages but in reality, there are,” Petilla said.

The DOE based its forecast of forced outages from the average monthly deficiency caused by the outages from 2012 to 2014.

“That’s even a conservative estimate because we are basing it on average instead of the highest outage,” Petilla said.

The Energy chief was reacting to The Star report which said the DOE and NGCP have conflicting data on the power situation in the summer of 2015.

According to the DOE, the Luzon grid will need 9,011 megawatts of power next year, higher than this year’s demand of 8,717 MW on the back of the projected growth in the economy.

On the other hand, NGCP data submitted to the House Committee on Energy  showed a forecast peak demand of 7,760 MW in January to 8,410 MW next December.

NGCP data also showed no indication of a shortfall with available power ranging from 8,839 MW in January to 10,946 MW in December.