PCPC admits internal plant issue prolonged return to Panay grid

MANILA, Philippines — The Palm Concepcion Power Corp. (PCPC) admitted to the Senate that its plant caused and prolonged the power outage on Panay Island at the start of January.

During the hearing of the Senate committee on energy chaired by Sen. Raffy Tulfo, PCPC vice president for operations Albino Kintanar acknowledged reports that the tripping of its 135-MW power plant led to the loss of electricity in the entire Panay Island.

Kintanar said the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP) provided PCPC with blackstart power within 30 minutes.

Minutes after PCPC’s feedback power was restored, the entire Panay grid tripped.

When confronted by Sen. Francis Escudero on its failure to restore power within the required period of two hours, Kintanar said a geothermal power plant needed four to six hours to start up, but the subsequent trippings affected the unit, particularly its turning gear.

“Why did it take longer than usual for PCPC to synchronize to the Panay sub-grid? The assumption is a typical plant when it trips can be synchronized within 2-4 hours. It took four days,” Escudero asked.

He explained that due to the delay, the turning gear malfunctioned, with the rotating part adhering to the stationary part. It took them two to three days to cool it down.

The Panay Energy Development Corp., for its part, managed to restore its supply just hours after the outage.

The PCPC also admitted that it failed to consider this scenario during the simulations conducted in March 2023 and delayed its periodic maintenance system that was scheduled last August due to problems in the delivery of spare parts.

Escudero also expressed alarm over NGCP’s limited visitational powers over power plants to prevent such incidents from happening in the future.

Under the Grid Code, NGCP can only visit during commissioning of a new power plant to ensure consistency of protection settings. The other time that NGCP can inspect power plants is when they apply for ancillary service.

“After that, under the Code, we will already rely on what the power plant tells us,” NGCP told Escudero, who called on the Energy Regulatory Commission and the Department of Energy to revisit the Grid Code to make it attuned to present needs.

“I hope DOE will look into this with the view of giving them more teeth… to fight for the people in case they are at a disadvantage,” he said.

Tulfo, for his part, noted PCPC’s shortcomings when it failed to conduct a timely maintenance that could have prevented the outage, adding that there should be continuous monitoring and replacing of parts.

Owned by businessman Walter Brown, PCPC was also the culprit behind the sudden April 27 power outage in Panay Island last year. NGCP revealed that before the April 27 power breakdown, PCPC replaced its protection setting that was not compatible with the transmission system.

Escudero further said in a separate statement that it is more important to find solutions to prevent similar situations. “NGCP (given its delayed projects) shares the blame; PCPC for shutting down without following the grid code values; government for not monitoring, supervising and penalizing power plants and NGCP given its nature as an oligopoly and monopoly; and updating of the grid code in order to more accurately reflect the needs of the industry.”

In the Jan. 11 House committee on energy hearing, Rep. Francisco Benitez echoed the same call for holistic solution to prevent the same incident from recurring.

“Who is culpable? Who is liable? And what can be done to ensure that it doesn’t happen again? In all those questions, there’s probably more than one answer. If there were trippings that were occurring because of multiple possible reasons, the next question is why does it take so long for power to be returned? And what kind of contingency plans can be put into place and properly funded if short-term and long-term solutions need to be found?” stated Benitez.