ILOILO CITY – The National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP) warned of power instability in Panay Island less than a month after the prolonged New Year power blackout.
The NGCP announced on Thursday, February 1, that it may resort to manual loading dropping.
“This is to preserve the integrity of the system in anticipation of another outage in the Panay sub-grid,” said NGCP in an advisory.
Affected areas may include Aklan, Antique, Capiz, Guimaras, and Iloilo provinces as well as the regional capital of Iloilo City.
In its announcement, the NGCP said that Unit 1 of the coal-fired power plant of Panay Energy Development Corp. (PEDC) under Meralco PowerGen Corp. (MGen) is under preventive maintenance starting midnight February 1 and will end on February 17.
NGCP added that Unit 2 of the PEDC coal-fired power plant in Iloilo City went on unplanned shutdown on January 29 but was able to reconnect back to the grid on Wednesday, January 31.
The NGCP noted there is unresolved issues with Palm Concepcion Power Corp. (PCPC) located in the northern Iloilo town of Concepcion.
“The loss of more than one generating unit in the Panay sub-grid may qualify as a significant threat to system security,” warned NGCP.
It was unclear what happened with PCPC.
Michael Guanco, head of the PEDC Community Relations and External Affairs, said that Unit 1 was scheduled for maintenance. “Our Unit 2 and Unit 3 is still operational,” Guano said.
The Unit 2 coal-fired power plant generates 82 MWs while Unit 3 generates 150 MWs.