• CHERYL G. CRUZ
The National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) said Feb. 1 that it may resort to manual load dropping (MLD) “to preserve the integrity of the system in anticipation of another outage in the Panay sub-grid”.
The advisory was issued Thursday afternoon, after the Panay Energy Development Corp. (PEDC) notified the NGCP that its Unit 1, with an 83-megawatt (MW) capacity, “will undergo maintenance shutdown at 12:01 a.m. Feb. 1 up to Feb. 17”.
“PEDC Unit 2 (83MW) previously went on unplanned shutdown Jan. 29 and was able to synchronize back to the grid at 9:48 a.m. Jan. 31,” the NGCP said. “Considering the unresolved issues of PCPC (Palm Concepcion Power Corp.), the second largest power plant in Panay with a capacity of 135MW, the loss of more than one generating unit in the Panay sub-grid may qualify as a significant threat to system security.”
“This may justify manual intervention by the system operator NGCP,” it added.
The Jan. 2-4 massive blackout in Western Visayas, including parts of Negros Occidental, was initially attributed to the tripping of the PEDC Unit 1 at 12:06 p.m. Jan. 2, and the tripping of other power plants at 2:19 p.m., also that day.
Meanwhile, the NGCP scheduled a 12-hour power interruption, starting at 6 a.m. tomorrow, Feb. 3, affecting the Alijis and Murcia substations of the Central Negros Electric Cooperative, for maintenance activities and to conduct testing and commissioning of under voltage relay at the Bacolod substation.
“The NGCP will shut down its Bacolod-Alijis 69kV transmission line. Ceneco shall take advantage of this downtime by implementing simultaneous maintenance works” at the 30MVA Murcia substation and 30MVA Alijis substation, acting general manager, Atty. Arnel Lapore, said.
Ceneco will also replace rotten primary poles, and will conduct tree clearing activities, Lapore added.
He also advised consumers to turn off all electrical switch/es during a power interruption for safety reasons. “When electricity supply resumes, wait for about 10-15 minutes before switching on all electrical appliances and facilities to avoid power surge.” | CGC
