DOE orders Ilijan gas plant to run on liquid fuel

MANILA, Philippines - The Department of Energy (DOE) has directed the 1,200-megawatt Ilijan natural gas-fired plant to run on liquid fuel from March 15 to April 15 so it can still provide much-needed power to the Luzon grid this summer.

The Ilijan plant and two other natural gas facilities, the 1,000-MW Santa Rita and 500-MW San Lorenzo plants, source their power from the Malampaya gas field in offshore Palawan.

This is the first time the Ilijan plant, operated by Kepco Philippines, would shift to liquid fuel because usually, the plant would go on maintenance shutdown when the Malampaya also shuts down for maintenance works.

“Because of the very tight supply, if they have to conduct maintenance, (they would have to) defer it and run because we need the additional capacity,” DOE Undersecretary Zenaida Monsada said.

She explained that the Ilijan power plant’s constraint is that it only has one fuel line. As such, when it shifts to liquid fuel, which can either be pure diesel or biodiesel, the plant would have to first undergo cleaning operations due to the apprehension over water absorption.

The cleaning process may result to additional plant downtime when using biodiesel, Monsada said.

As such, the total output of the power plant is assumed to be lower, she added.

Last year, Energy Secretary Carlos Jericho Petilla proposed to suspend the application of the Biofuels Law — which mandates a two percent blending of cocobiodiesel with diesel — with respect to the Ilijan plant to allow it to run on pure diesel.

Petilla wants to maximize the Ilijan plant’s output to its full 600 MW capacity from the projected 420 MW when using diesel.

However, Monsada said the plant is designed to run on both diesel and natural gas but there are apprehensions that because of liquid fuel’s affinity to water, the plant may take longer time to clean.

She said the expected lower output from the Ilijan plant was based on the assumption that the fuel line will have to be cleaned when it shifts to liquid fuel.

Cleaning involves downtime and longer downtime means more power generation loss. 

“That is the average that the plant will run when you use diesel (B2), based on estimated downtime because of the conversion back to gas. In the end, that is the issue, cleaning up the fuel line,” Monsada said.

But she stressed that there is no problem with the Ilijan plant’s technical capability to utilize both pure diesel and biodiesel (B2).

“There is no problem in the engine, it is designed to run on both fuel.  The problem is when they revert back to gas, they have to clean the line. The plant will not run slower (when it shifts to biodiesel (B2)), there is just the possibility of a longer cleaning time that is based on assumption... if you think of potential problems, you think of everything,” she said.

The Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corp. (PSALM), the government corporation tasked to privatize state-owned power assets, meanwhile, has commenced the procurement for the supply and delivery of its industrial diesel oil (IDO) requirements for the Ilijan natural gas power plant.

Through an invitation to bid published on Friday, PSALM announced that it would procure 60 million liters of IDO for the Ilijan power plant, with an approved budget of P1.66 billion.

“The IDO procurement project shall ensure the operation of Ilijan this year, especially with the anticipated tightening of power supply in the summer,” PSALM president and chief executive officer Emmanuel R. Ledesma Jr. said.

PSALM will hold the pre-bid conference on Jan. 30, which shall be open only to all interested parties who have purchased the bidding documents.

Bid submission deadline is on Feb. 16, 2015 at 10 a.m., PSALM said.