Many coal-fired power plants in Luzon, the main island in the Philippines, suffer from rotational and unplanned outages. Part of the reason is due to ageing coal power plants, typically 20-30 years old, experiencing unplanned outages. It is difficult to upgrade them as this means being offline for several months, which plant operators cannot afford due to contractual delivery obligations. Luzon’s constantly growing energy demand has left little spare grid capacity.

This situation has led to regular outages which can cause blackouts if too much electricity production is lost from the grid. Blackouts necessitate the use of backup generators which use more expensive fuels such as oil and therefore raise generation costs. This makes a speedy response time to outages crucial.

The year 2021 was especially challenging due to COVID-19 movement restrictions. Mitsubishi Power was able to mobilize the Quick Response Team (QRT) that was set up to ensure timely response to customers. Between 20-100 local members could immediately be dispatched, depending on the severity and scale of outage.

Mitsubishi Power responded and deployed personnel within 24 hours to address emergency incidents at a power station, such as boiler tube leakage.

The company has nearly 1,600 staff in the Philippines. It houses the only boiler manufacturing plant in the country, including facilities such as a fabrication shop that can quickly produce and install equipment like pipes.

The following are some of the repairs that the team did in 2021, all which were responded to within 24 hours of an incident report being filed:

Minimizing outages and reducing plant downtime is important for power plant operators, and Mitsubishi Power has the data, technology and resources to help plant operators rapidly identify issues and to resolve those issues quickly.