Energy Secretary Angelo Reyes is scheduled to meet power generators, distribution utilities and transmission firms today to discuss a possible action plan, a government press release said.

Reyes said the meeting will focus on the scheduling of the possible shutdowns of the power plants for maintenance to avert the repeat of rotating brownouts that happened two weeks ago.

”I will assemble all of them so that the scheduling of the maintenance and shutdowns will be properly coordinated in order to avoid the rotating brownouts,” Reyes said in the press release.

He said the main object of the meeting is to find ways to address the lower level of water from hydro plants which are also being used for drinking, irrigation and power supply.

Since hydro power is dependent on water supply, the risk of power interruptions and rotating brownouts would be high this coming summer season, Reyes said in the press release.

He added that the Malampaya plant is set to undergo maintenance shutdown for 30 days, starting on February 10.

Last week, several parts of Metro Manila as well as some parts of Bulacan, Laguna and Cavite suffered rotating brownouts after distribution giant Manila Electric Company implemented a manual load dropping due to the tripping of the unit 1 of the 1,000 megawatt Sual coal-fired power facility.

National Grid Corp. of the Philippines reported that Sual bogged down past 12 noon and this forced them to impose an automatic load dropping.

NGCP also said that apart from the feed water pump trouble that was encountered by the Sual 1, the other unit of Sual was not working due to coal supply limitations.

The power supply situation was further aggravated by the maintenance repair being performed on the 200 MW Calaca plant, the 460MW Quezon Power plant and the 600MW Ilijan plant.

NGCP reported that most of the hydro plants are suffering from “low water levels”, the press release added.*

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