A. INSTALLED, DEPENDABLE AND AVAILABLE CAPACITY
The Philippines' total installed generating capacity continued to grow by 4.6% from 17,944 MW in 2014 to 18,765 MW in 2015 equivalent to 821 MW increase. Coalfired power plants constitute the largest share in the installed and dependable capacity in 2015 at 32% and 34% respectively. Among renewable energy, hydro sources' share remained the highest at 19% majority of which comes from the Mindanao Grid. With the FIT incentives and continued support of the DOE and energy agencies and stakeholders, Variable Renewable Energy (VRE) such as wind and solar grew remarkably by 50.9% (144 MW increase) and 616.0% (142 MW increase) respectively from 2014 to 2015 as shown in Figure 1.
The percent share on a per Grid basis remained unchanged over the years. In 2015, almost 75% of the total capacities was in Luzon, while Visayas and Mindanao, with at par shares, comprised the remaining 25%. The commercial operation of power plants from different technologies provided the needed additional capacities for the Luzon Grid in 2015.
On the average, the actual available capacity during peak hours in Luzon, Visayas in Mindanao was 70% of the total installed capacity in the Philippines in 2015. Among other plant technologies, natural gas in Luzon provided the highest percentage of available capacity over installed capacity at 95%, followed by coal at 85% and geothermal at 70%. Whereas, wind and solar, due to variability and intermittency, provided the lowest available capacity in 2015 at only 22% and 33% of the total installed capacity.
For Visayas and Mindanao, coal-fired power plants delivered the highest available capacity at 91% and 89% respectively. The actual available capacity over installed capacity provided by wind and solar was the highest in Visayas at 89% and 72%. However, due to El Niño, the available capacity of hydro in Mindanao was limited to only 58% of the total hydro capacity.
As shown in Table 2, new power plants were commissioned in 2015 from different technologies such as the 135 MW South Luzon Thermal Energy Corporation (SLTEC) Coal-Fired Power Plant Unit 1 in Batangas, 13.2 MW Sabangan Hydroelectric Power Plant (HEPP) in Mt. Province and 6 MW Sinoma Waste Heat Recovery System in Rizal. In addition, the 100 MW Gas Turbine Power Plant in Navotas was rehabilitated by Millennium Energy Inc. (MEI) and is currently embedded under the MERALCO franchise area.
On the second half of 2015, more RE-based plants from wind, biomass and solar went online totaling to 265 MW such as the 54 MW Alternergy Wind Farm in Pililia, Rizal, 20 MW Isabela Biomass Energy Corporation (IBEC) Bagasse-Fired Power Plant, and 13 MW Bataan 2020 Rice Husk-Fired Power Plant. There were also solar photovoltaic (PV) farms which have been operational such as the 10 MW Phase 1 and 13.1 MW Phase 2 of Raslag Corporation Solar Farm in Pampanga, 41.3 MW Majestic Solar Rooftop in Cavite, 4 MW Burgos Solar Farm in Ilocos Norte, and the 1.5 MW rooftop-installed solar panels of Solar Philippines which is located at SM North EDSA.
On the other hand, Visayas’ net increase in capacity was the smallest compared to the two Grids. Based on Table 3, newly operational RE plants coming from biomass, wind, and solar provided additional 200 MW in the installed capacity and 170 MW in the dependable capacity. However, due to the decommissioning of Salcon’s Cebu Thermal Power Plant (TPP), the total installed and dependable capacity of coal declined in 2015. The units of Cebu Land-Based Gas Turbine of SPC Island Power Corporation is currently under preservation and have not provided power to the grid during the past years which contributed to the 80 MW drop in dependable capacity coming from oil-based sources in 2015. On the same manner, the non-operation of DESCO Inc.’s Natural Gas Power Plant due to non-availability of fuel and the adjustments in capacities of Unified Leyte Geothermal Power Plants also decreased the dependable capacity of the Visayas Grid.
As shown in Table 4, in 2015, the capacities in Mindanao inched up significantly compared to previous years after the entry of new power plants coming from base-load coal (150 MW Therma South Coal Unit 1), oil (20.9 MW Peak Power Soccsargen, 5.9 MW Peak Power ASELCO, and 7.8 MW King Energy - Maramag) and solar (12.5 MW Kirahon Solar Farm and 6.2 MW Centralla Solar Farm). On the other hand, the dependable capacity of hydro declined by 3 MW due to deratings.
