Three coal-fired power companies that submitted the best bids for Meralco’s proposed 15-year supply contracts each recorded more than 100 aggregate days of forced outages from 2019 to 2023, an energy think tank said.
The Center for Energy, Ecology, and Development (CEED) said Sual Power Inc. recorded 286.95 days of forced outages during the period, followed by Mariveles Power Gen Corp. with 269.32 days and GNPower Mariveles Energy Center with 148.01 days.
The three companies emerged with the best bids during Meralco’s competitive selection process earlier this week for a 600-megawatt power supply requirement.
AboitizPower’s GNPower Mariveles and San Miguel Corp.’s Sual Power and Mariveles Power Gen will each contribute 200 MW to meet the required capacity.
CEED said the outage records raise concerns over Meralco’s continued reliance on coal plants for long-term power supply.
“The persistent use of fossil fuels like coal has taken a heavy toll on our energy security and economic development. Even with that and a global energy crisis that continues to unfold, we see companies like Meralco go on and sign long-term contracts with these coal plants,” said Brent Ivan Andres, CEED’s deputy head of research and policy.
“If there is anything that this energy crisis has taught the Philippine public, it is that fossil fuel generation leads to expensive electricity and frequent power outages,” Andres said.
CEED said the forced outage of Mariveles Power Gen’s Unit 4 and the deration of Sual Power’s Unit 1 contributed to red and yellow alerts experienced by Luzon consumers in May.
Its 2023 report identified forced outages as the primary reason behind red and yellow alerts, which may lead to power interruptions in affected grids.
The findings were released as the Visayas and Mindanao grids remained under red and yellow alerts on Sept. 3 because of unavailable and derated generating units.
In the Visayas, available capacity stood at about 2,187 MW against expected peak demand of 2,575 MW. Several units were unavailable, while 16 power plants were operating at derated capacities, resulting in a total capacity loss of about 792 MW.
Mindanao had about 2,480 MW of available capacity against expected peak demand of 2,546 MW. Forced outages and derated plants accounted for about 841.6 MW in lost capacity.
The National Grid Corp. of the Philippines issues a yellow alert when available capacity falls below a grid’s contingency requirement. A red alert is issued when available capacity is insufficient to meet both demand and the grid’s contingency requirement.
