THE Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corp. (PSALM) said there is no need to put up temporary fuel tanks for Ilijan power plant should it use diesel in the summer months of 2015.
This was in response to Sen. Sergio Osmena III’s proposal that PSALM could be refunded for the extra cost of putting up temporary storage fuel.
“There is no need to put additional tanks at ilijan. Daily delivery of 6 million liters can serve the two units running at 50 megawatts [MW] each. This is possible if Shell can commission enough vessels for continuous daily delivery,” PSALM President Emmanuel Ledesma said.
There is a proposal for Ilijan to use pure diesel from biodiesel when the Malampaya natural-gas facility goes offline from March 15 to April 14, 2015.
Ilijan is among the three power plants fueled by the Malampaya facility. The other two are the 1,000-MW Santa Rita and the 500-MW San Lorenzo power plants.
The Santa Rita and San Lorenzo power plants of the Lopez group can run on expensive liquid fuel whenever Malampaya is offline. The Ilijan power plant, meanwhile, can run on biodiesel.
However, when Ilijan runs on biodiesel, its capacity will be reduced to 420MW from 600 MW per unit, Energy Secretary Carlos Jericho L. Petilla said.
The Ilijan combined-cycle power plant is composed of two units, with a capacity of 600 MW each. Unit 2 is scheduled to undergo a maintenance outage at the same time the Malampaya natural-gas facility also goes offline on March 15.
According to Osmeña, the impending joint resolution granting special powers to President Aquino to address the looming power crisis would give the President the power to exempt certain establishments from the Biofuels Act so they could use pure diesel, instead of biodiesel, when necessary to address a supply shortage.
Ilijan, he said, would benefit from this exemption.
But PSALM has said the fuel shift to diesel will not provide assurance that the load of the plant’s Unit 1 would increase from 420 MW to 600 MW whenever the natural-gas supply from the Malampaya is not available. “In any case, this shift cannot be completed in time for the Malampaya shutdown, from March 15 2015, to April 14 2015,” he added.
“The change in the Ilijan power plant’s alternative fuel from biodiesel to pure diesel has been proposed to augment the power supply during the Malampaya shutdown in 2015, with an expectation that this will ensure operation of Ilijan’s Block 1 at its full 600-MW capacity. However, this shift cannot guarantee the increase in capacity given [a] that the last performance test of the plant using liquid fuel was conducted 13 years ago, and [b] the effect of plant degradation and changes in ambient temperature during its operation,” Ledesma explained.
Moreover, Ledesma pointed out that the should the shift to pure diesel proceed, the following activities would require around six months to complete, which will extend beyond March 2015: (a) liquid operation of Ilijan for three days to consume the current biodiesel inventory; (b) cleaning of the fuel tanks to be undertaken by plant operator Kepco Ilijan Corp.; (c) PSALM’s procurement of contractor for removal of sludge, actual removal and sale; (d) preparation of the gas turbines for pure diesel operation; and (e) PSALM’s procurement of 60 million liters of pure diesel.
There is also a need to conduct a pure diesel tuning, stability operation and performance test, which will take at least eight days. Hence, PSALM recommends the continued use of biodiesel for Ilijan to ensure continuous power supply during the 2015 Malampaya shutdown,” Ledesma added.