By Reuel John F. Lumawag
Thursday, May 8, 2014
DAVAO Light and Power Company (DLPC) was able to avoid the implementation of scheduled brownouts during off-peak hours set Wednesday night and at dawn Thursday.
Ross Luga, DLPC corporate communications officer, said in a phone interview with Sun.Star Davao, that this was the immediate effect of the resumption of operations and the onlining of the first of the two 105-megawatt (MW) units of the 210MW Steag State Power Inc. (SPI) coal-fired power plant in Misamis Oriental to the Mindanao grid at 8:55 p.m. on Wednesday.
However, Luga said the scheduled rotational brownouts have remained at five hours during peak hours, 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., but they are hoping that there will be no more rotational brownouts during the off-peak hours, 8 p.m. to 8 a.m.
He said this will help reduce the duration of the rotational brownouts "with the assumption that the National Power Corporation (NPC) is constant with its allocation" of power supply.
"We are doing our best efforts to bring down the interruptions from maximum of five hours to a maximum of four hours," Luga said.
He also pointed out that since its summer and there is still the problem with the limited capacity of the hydro-electric plants, consumers should still expect for the worse.
"It could be longer or better," Luga said.
In an e-mail sent to Sun.Star Davao by SPI Communications head Jerome Soldevilla, Unit 2 of the coal-fired power plant was able to resume operations before its rescheduled date on May 8, 2014.
"We are happy to announce that SPI has added up 105MW to the grid and we hope this will provide some relief in the precarious power supply condition of Mindanao" Dr. Carsten Evers, SPI power plant manager, said in a statement.
The company originally set May 4, 2014 for the resumption of the operations of the Unit 2 of the power plant.
Evers said that even though the repair of Unit 2 was already completed by that time they "need more time to ensure that the unit is in excellent condition prior to commissioning and synchronization to the Mindanao grid."
The company said their employees are "working 24/7 to complete the repair and maintenance of the two units and to restore the power plant’s full capacity citing the electricity supply deficiency in Mindanao."
The coal-fired power plant went offline after sustaining damage on its turbine-generators on February 27, 2014 during the Mindanao-wide power outage. source
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