By Donnabelle Gatdula (The Philippine Star) Updated October 16, 2010 12:00 AM Comments (0)  |
MANILA, Philippines - One-to four-hour blackouts hit Luzon yesterday due to technical problems in two major coal-fired power facilities.
Energy officials said if not mitigated, the blackouts would continue until early next week.
Energy Secretary Jose Rene Almendras said the 200-megawatt Sual and the 700-MW Pagbilao coal plants, operated by Team Energy Corp., a joint venture of Japanese firms Tokyo Electric Power Co. and Marubeni Corp., bogged down at the wee hours yesterday due to boiler and condenser leaks.
The facilities’ output is contracted by San Miguel Corp. and Aboitiz Power Corp., respectively.
Aside from the two plants, the Magat hydroelectric power plant’s capacity went down to 85 MW from 344 MW. The facility is owned by the joint venture of AP and Norway’s Statkraft Norfund Power Invest AS.
Due to the problems in the plants, Luzon suffered a power supply deficiency of 111 MW with peak demand of 6,726 MW compared to available capacity of 6,690 MW.
Almendras said though there may be no blackouts this weekend as demands are normally low, Monday next week would be another problem if these power plants would still be down.
“We need to ensure that supply will be sufficient by Monday or we will still have these rotating brownouts by Monday,” the energy secretary said.
Energy officials said if not mitigated, the blackouts would continue until early next week.
Energy Secretary Jose Rene Almendras said the 200-megawatt Sual and the 700-MW Pagbilao coal plants, operated by Team Energy Corp., a joint venture of Japanese firms Tokyo Electric Power Co. and Marubeni Corp., bogged down at the wee hours yesterday due to boiler and condenser leaks.
The facilities’ output is contracted by San Miguel Corp. and Aboitiz Power Corp., respectively.
Aside from the two plants, the Magat hydroelectric power plant’s capacity went down to 85 MW from 344 MW. The facility is owned by the joint venture of AP and Norway’s Statkraft Norfund Power Invest AS.
Due to the problems in the plants, Luzon suffered a power supply deficiency of 111 MW with peak demand of 6,726 MW compared to available capacity of 6,690 MW.
Almendras said though there may be no blackouts this weekend as demands are normally low, Monday next week would be another problem if these power plants would still be down.
“We need to ensure that supply will be sufficient by Monday or we will still have these rotating brownouts by Monday,” the energy secretary said.
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