The National Grid Corporation (NGCP) maintained on Wednesday, Jan. 10 that after the unplanned outage of Panay Energy Development Corp. (PEDC) Unit 1, the system remained normal and stable before the multiple plant shutdowns that led to the blackout.
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During an inquiry led by the Senate Committee on Energy chaired by Sen. Raffy Tulfo, the senator asked why no actions were made between 12:06 p.m. when PEDC Unit 1 shut down, and 2:19 p.m. when the PCPC also shut down which triggered the unplanned outages of multiple power generators in Panay Island.
President Marcos noted that the NGCP had a crucial two-hour window to prevent the system collapse but failed to resort to manual load dropping resulting in the crisis.
"Between 12:06 and 14:19, stable nga po yung grid, normal limits ang voltage at frequency, wala po tayong overloaded na line, walang tripping ng lines, normal po (the grid was table, the voltage and frequency was within normal limits, no overloaded line, no tripping of lines, itw as normal.) So we did the normal dispatch, normal process, normal responsibility as system operations," said Clark N. Agustin, OIC-AVP and Head of National System Operations of NGCP.
"From 12 noon to 2:19 p.m., namaintain po natin within normal range (we maintained it within normal range)," he added.
Agustin also stated that according to the Philippine Grid Code (PGC), they should not impose manual corrective actions during normal conditions.
But Tulfo pointed out the condition was no longer normal because of the tripping and mentioned that what NGCP should have done was to find out the problem and address it.
Meanwhile, Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) Chairperson and Chief Executive Officer Monalisa C. Dimalanta who is currently investigating the matter, said that they are still finding out if it was still in a normal state considering that there was a unit scheduled for maintenance when PEDC Unit 1 experienced an unscheduled outage.
Dimalanta also pointed out that under the PGC, within 15 minutes, the NGCP must submit an outage report which the latter did not do in the first incident.
"Siguro (Maybe) they were flowing from the appreciation that it wasn't a significant incident kasi po stable raw (because it was stable)," she added.
Tulfo stated there were several lapses and reiterated that it should serve as grounds for the termination of NGCP's franchise.
"Nung nagtrip yung Unit 1, dapat nataranta na sila, nag-panic na sila, di ho ba? E hindi eh, para sa kanila normal lang daw at stable. Ewan ko kung stable pa rin ang pag-iisip ninyo (When Unit 1 tripped, they should have been alarmed, they should have panicked, right? But they didn't, for them it's normal and stable. I don't know if your thinking is still stable)," Tulfo said.
In a statement, NGCP stressed that it simply followed protocols set by the ERC in responding to the multiple plant shutdowns in Panay that led to the Panay blackout last January 2.