- CHERYL G. CRUZ
Voltage fluctuations and unscheduled power interruptions are being experienced in Bacolod City, Negros Occidental, and Panay Island as the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines issues a yellow alert that is in effect until 10 o’clock tonight, Jan. 2.
The Central Negros Electric Cooperative said manual load dropping is in effect from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. affecting its whole coverage area due to line generation deficiency and line protection overloading.
The NGCP said in an advisory past 5 p.m. that the yellow alert was issued due to the tripping of major power plants in Panay, resulting in low operating margin.
“Restoration of affected plants are ongoing. Distribution utilities may implement load drops due to voltage sensitive loads or manual disconnection to secure voltage levels,” it added.
It said that it monitored the tripping of PEDC (Panay Energy Development Corp.) Unit 1 in Iloilo at 12:06 this afternoon due to an internal issue. At 2:19 p.m., the PEDC Unit 2, PCPC, and other plants tripped in Panay Island, isolating these from the rest of the Visayas grid.
The cause of the multiple tripping is still unknown, the NGCP said, adding that “302 megawatts of electricity was lost to the grid, in addition to the 150MW on planned maintenance shutdown, including PEDC Unit 3”.
In total, 452MW is unavailable, and none of the power plants in Panay Island are generating power, the NGCP said, adding that to stabilize voltage, “it has extended feedback power to Iloilo and PEDC.”
Load restoration will be done conservatively, by matching loads to restored generation, to prevent repeated voltage failure, it said.
While the Negros-Panay interconnection was restored at 3:24 p.m. after it tripped at 3:07 p.m., power interruptions and voltage fluctuations are being experienced in the Ceneco coverage areas of Bacolod, Bago, Murcia, Don Salvador Benedicto, Talisay, and Silay.
The Northern Negros Electric Cooperative also issued a load shedding alert affecting EB Magalona, Victorias, Manapla, Cadiz, and Sagay due to current grid conditions./CGC
