MANILA – The Department of Energy (DOE) on Saturday said it was looking into multiple power interruptions in Visayas, after the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) said some power plants got disengaged from the transmission system.
Energy Undersecretary Wimpy Fuentebella said authorities are “looking into the situation why it happened.”
“Naka-time stamp naman ang lahat ng mga reports na iyan so, we will know if it’s caused by the transmission line or it’s caused by the power plant themselves. But the call is for us to have more resilient and better services for consumers,” Fuentebella told reporters in a briefing.
“Usec. Sharon Garin is the one who informed me – She is OIC-Secretary right now – of what’s happening there in that area. So, we are looking into it,” he said.
Based on its monitoring on Thursday, the NGCP said a distribution utility-owned line tripped “and caused power plants to disengage from the transmission system.”
This affected the Visayan grid.
On Friday, meanwhile, a generation facility also tripped, creating another system disturbance, it said.
NGCP on Saturday then released a statement, recognizing the “suffering” of the public and business establishments because of the “recent spate of power interruptions” in the island of Panay.
The firm added that it is determining the root cause of the trippings so it could finally stabilize the power supply chain there.
It said they are working with its counterparts in the generation and distribution sectors to execute adjustments.
“While we have assessed our system for possible malfunctions, and confirmed that our protocols are working as intended, we are also exploring the possibility that adjustments need to be made along the supply chain to stabilize power in Panay,” the statement read.
ILOILO
In Iloilo, a similar situation happened.
A statement from the MORE Electric and Power Corporation, an Iloilo City Electric cooperative, showed that the Power Plant of Panay Energy Development Corp. (PEDC) and the Panay Energy Development Corp. (PEDC) unit 1 got shut down.
The nearly 12-hour power interruption in Iloilo City “was caused by the tripping of automatic load drops in several feeders due to under/over-frequency activation,” said the firm.
This was worsened by the shutdown of PEDC’s unit 3 “which led to a power supply deficiency.”
In the morning, MORE Power attempted to energize its feeders, reaching nearly 70 percent of loading, but PEDC’s unit 1 “tripped again.”
This forced the electric cooperative to drop their loading to nearly 40 percent, while the NGCP requested again for the manual load drop.
At 2:56 in the afternoon MORE Power said it was running at 55.52 percent as it awaits instructions from the NGCP when it can fully supply more power.
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