Mindanao power lines not damaged by earthquake

Business Mirror

06 Dec 2013 

 

Written by Lenie Lectura

POWER transmission services of the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP) remain normal despite the 5.7-magnitude earthquake, which occurred 57 kilometers southeast of Mati, Davao Oriental.

The NGCP said the grid remains intact as there had been no reported cases of power interruptions and damaged transmission facilities. The earthquake occurred on December 4.

NGCP, through its Integrated Disaster Action Plan (Idap), continuously implements the necessary preparations and precautions to ensure the readiness of all power transmission facilities expected to be affected by disasters like earthquakes, typhoons, floods, landslides, tsunami, volcanic eruptions and fire emergencies.

Also, the NGCP reported that around 72 percent of the Visayas grid load has been restored after it energized two 230-kilovolt (kV) lines and four 138-kV lines on Leyte island, and two 138-kV lines on Samar island. These represent five of the eight priority transmission grid backbones for restoration. They transmit electricity to substations that will allow the energization of the said islands.

The grid operator also energized 14 69-kV lines on Leyte, Samar and Panay islands. To date, access to power was sooner restored by NGCP to 13 electric cooperatives, including Iloilo Electric Cooperative 1, 2 and 3; Antique Electric Cooperative; Capiz Electric Cooperative; Leyte Electric Cooperative 2, 4 and 5, Southern Leyte Electric Cooperative; Samar Electric Cooperative 1 and 2; Eastern Samar Electric Cooperative; and Northern Samar Electric Cooperative.

The latest energized transmission backbones of the NGCP are the Ormoc-Babatngon 138-kV line in Leyte; Babatngon-Paranas 138-kV line traversing Samar and Leyte; Paranas-Calbayog 138-kV line in Samar; and  the Dingle-Panit-an 138-kV line in Capiz.

The recently energized transmission backbones of the NGCP have brought power back to key cities in the Visayas badly hit by Supertyphoon Yolanda, including Maasin City, Southern Leyte, Roxas City, Capiz, and Catbalogan City, Samar. Based on the NGCP’s assessment, Yolanda damaged more than 2,000 transmission structures of 34 transmission lines and affected 23 substations in the Visayas.   source