The Department of Energy (DOE) has notified other government agencies to take appropriate measures to protect vaccines stored in cold storage facilities due to possible rotational brownouts within a week or until June. 7.
“Dapat patuloy ‘yung coordination natin sa IATF sa ating mga opisyales — local and national officials — para masigurado na protektado ‘yung ating mga storage facilities for our vaccines,” said DOE Undersecretary William Fuentebella.
They suggested having a ‘triple backup system’ to resolve the situation. This includes a backup solution to the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP), distribution utilities, and the location of storage facilities.
This is after the Luzon grid was put on ‘yellow and red alert status.’ ‘Yellow status’ means that the power supply is thin in an area while ‘red alert’ may already implement a ‘brownout.’
According to NGCP spokesperson Cynthia Alabanza, this could continue until June 7 except on Saturdays and Sundays when electricity demand is lower.
Currently, the available capacity is only 11,408 megawatts, which is less than the 11,593 megawatts needed for ‘peak demand’.
Protect COVID-19 vaccines vs brownouts in Luzon
To solve this, NGCP may implement ‘manual load dropping (MLD)’ or ‘rotational brownout’ in some parts of Luzon.
NGCP Luzon System head Beng Abadilla said the energy situation is expected to return to normal on June 8 as the major plants that suffered emergency outages will return to ‘online operation.’
The DOE hopes that the country’s energy reserves will increase with the arrival of rains and storms that will cause a decrease in public electricity demand caused by air-conditioning units and electric fans.
According to the Department of Energy, NGCP must have a contracted power reserve.
“Assuming na naka-100 percent fully contracted si NGCP sa ancillary services, hindi pa rin po mawawala ‘yong mga grid alert. Kaya di kami naka-fully contract kasi wala ho kaming mabibilhan,” answered NGCP spokesperson Cynthia Alabanza.
(Assuming that NGCP is 100 percent fully contracted to ancillary services, those grid alerts will still not go away. So we don’t have a full contract because there was nothing to buy from.)
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