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Manila Bulletin devider Philippines devider National devider 30-hour power outage strikes Western Visayas

30-hour power outage strikes Western Visayas

Published Jan 3, 2024 03:28 am

At A Glance

  • The National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) is currently restoring power back into the major power plants affected by the unforeseen shutdown.<br>The widespread power outage, which began on Tuesday, Jan. 2, is caused by an internal issue that has yet to be resolved.<br>As of 6 AM on Wednesday, Jan. 3, around144.2 megawatts (MW) of power was being served by the Panay power plants, while 51.8 MW were augmented from other sources in Visayas.<br>The NGCP needs at least 218 MW to stabilize and is awaiting the large plants to synchronize back to the grid.

The National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) reported ongoing power restoration efforts in parts of Visayas that are affected by the Panay power plant shutdown.

According to an update as of 6:00AM on Wednesday, Jan. 3, the NGCP said that 144.2 megawatts (MW) of power was being served by the Panay power plants, while 51.8 MW were augmented from other sources in Visayas.

About 191.7 MW in served loads have totaled as of the early morning.

The NGCP is gradually restoring the lost power from yesterday, stating that the necessary reload “will be done conservatively by matching [loads] to restored generation to prevent repeated voltage failure.”

The transmission firm also ensured that power would be retransmitted to affected areas, namely within Aklan, Antique, Capiz, Guimaras, Iloilo, Negros, Panay, to name a few.

NGCP reported a widespread power outage due to a power plant trip caused by an internal issue, which began on Tuesday, Jan. 2.

The NGCP has yet to investigate the particular cause of disruption which affected 13 major power plants in Visayas.

“The grid needs 218 MW to stabilize and is awaiting the large plants to synchronize back to the grid,” NGCP said.

Meanwhile, several electric cooperatives in Visayas have also advised their consumers of the unscheduled power generation interruptions.

Update as of Wednesday, January 3, 5:00 PM: the Panay power plants are currently serving a total of 224 MW load.

About 24.6 MW of the load has been augmented from other Visayas sources.

Furthermore, the NGCP is awaiting Palm Concepcion Power Corp. (PCPC), the remaining power plant, to synchronize back into the grid.

"Power restoration is in process, and we expect full generation capacity to be reached by evening tomorrow [Thursday], January 4th," PCPC reported.

Meanwhile, the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) and the Department of Energy (DOE) issued statements on the unplanned power interruptions which left a nearly 30-hour impact on parts of Western Visayas.

ERC Chairperson and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Monalisa C. Dimalanta assured that excessive efforts are being made to efficiently restore the power.

“To enhance communication and keep consumers better informed during this situation, we have requested the NGCP to increase the frequency of updates provided to the public,” she said as the regulatory body requested an hourly public update.

The DOE also said that the unexpected outage was caused by a tripping due to a boiler feed pump issue within Unit 1 of the Panay Energy Development Corp. (PEDC) coal-fired power plant.

Unit 1 of PCPC and Unit 2 of PEDC subsequently tripped due to the grid’s voltage imbalance.

Energy Undersecretary Rowena Guevara expected that the stakeholders could have resolved the issue in a different manner after last year’s system error.

“[NGCP] is in a position to anticipate system disturbance such as what happened yesterday, which unfortunately resulted in the isolation of Panay from the rest of the Visayas grid due to the simultaneous tripping of power plants that caused multiple power interruption affecting other power plants and distribution utilities [DUs],” she stressed.

The NGCP is currently investigating the data to figure out the cause and order of the power trips, while the DOE continues to coordinate with the transmission firm.

Related Tags

Panay Island Power outage National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP) Western Visayas
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