Semirara plant unit resumes power supply to Luzon grid

MANILA, Philippines — One of four units of Semirara Mining and Power Corp.’s power plants has started supplying capacity to the Luzon grid after completing maintenance.

In a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange yesterday, Semirara said Unit 1 of Sem-Calaca Power Corp. (SCPC) was synchronized to the Luzon grid last March 17 with an average load capacity of 250 megawatts (MW).

Unit 1 went on unplanned outage until March 12 “to give way to boiler slags removal.”

A wholly owned unit of Semirara, SCPC operates the 2x300-MW coal-fired thermal power plant in Calaca, Batangas.

Unit 2, on the other hand, is currently on a planned outage to include the thorough assessment/inspection of the unit prior to the final phase of the rehabilitation (life extension program) in 2019.

It is expected to start supplying capacity to the Luzon grid by the end of the month.

For this year, Semirara has budgeted $90 million, or roughly P4.7 billion, for the life extension program of the 2x300 MW conventional power plants.

The extension program will give Units 1 and 2 – which have been running for 33 years and 21 years, respectively – another 20 to 25 years.

SCPC has tapped Japanese energy and electronics giant Toshiba Corp. to optimize the operations and extend the life span of the Calaca power units.

Meanwhile, the two 150-MW units of another subsidiary, Southwest Luzon Power Generation Corp. (SLPGC), are also on shutdown.

SLPGC’s Unit 1 went on unplanned outage due to observed abnormal vibration of the equipment, while Unit 2 is undergoing regular planned maintenance outage and targets the unit to be back online by the last week of March.