Brownouts hit Metro Manila

Business Mirror
Published on Wednesday, 08 May 2013 21:22
Written by Lenie Lectura / Reporter

Barely a week before the May 13 elections, Metro Manila experienced power failure on Wednesday and the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP) promptly attributed it to generation-supply deficiency.

Officials were also quick to say the outage was not election-related.

“There is no reason for us to think it’s sabotage because there’s no indication. If you ask me if it’s election-related, we won’t know until we find the reason for tripping,” said Energy Secretary Carlos Jericho Petilla.

He also said he has ordered an investigation of the brownout. “If it’s a tripping of the line, then I don’t think the brownout will last until [Thursday]. The likelihood of five power plants bogging down is extremely unlikely. The lines caused the brownout, not the plants,” he said. 

He added that if the same happened on Election Day, the Precinct Count Optical Scan machines would run on battery. “The PCOS [machines] are battery-operated. Sixteen hours and with extra batteries. There is always additional security in vital installations,” he added.

“The [brownout]was caused by generation deficiency due to an unplanned outage of five power plants supplying electricity to the Luzon grid,” the NGCP said.

The outage affected about 50 percent of the franchise area of the Manila Electric Co. (Meralco).

The five power plants are the 1,000-megawatt Santa Rita Natural Gas; the 500-MW San Lorenzo Combined Cycle Gas; the 1,200-MW Ilijan Natural Gas; the 440-MW Quezon Power Coal; and the 1,000-MW Sual 1 Coal.

At one point, a total of 3,800 MW went offline. The power failure started shortly before 2 p.m.

Despite the sudden brownout that crippled many parts of Metro Manila and nearby areas, Malacañang was
given assurances by energy officials that this will not recur on May 13, saying there would be sufficient power supply to operate all the PCOS machines.

“Since the brownout that occurred earlier today [Malacañang was affected at 1:51 p.m.] the President asked for [updates], and has been regularly updated, by Energy Secretary Petilla on the scope and duration of the power outage,” Palace Deputy Spokesman Abigail Valte said.

In a text message, she added that the energy chief had briefed the public on the situation.

“President Aquino was assured that there is adequate power for Election Day and every step is being taken to ensure electricity supply nationwide on [that] day,” Valte said.

The Commission on Elections (Comelec) also assured the public that contingency measures are in place against power interruptions on May 13.

James Jimenez, Comelec spokesman, said the PCOS machines have built-in batteries that could last for at least of 12 hours.

“...I don’t think brownouts will affect our elections,” he added.

Earlier, the Comelec en banc passed a resolution deputizing government energy corporations to provide and maintain stable and continuous nationwide electric power supply during the elections.

Resolution 9597 assigned the National Electrification Administration, the National Power Corp. and local cooperatives to supply power requirements on May 13.

At press time, NGCP said it has no information on what time the operations of the power plants would resume.

“NGCP assures the public that its transmission lines are secure and fully functional. It will dispatch available capacities once the power plants are restored and online,” it said in a statement.            

When sought for comment, Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) Spokesman Joe Zaldarriaga echoed NGCP’s concern regarding the “supply deficiency” being experienced from the system coordinator

In a briefing, Petilla said the power outage originated from the Ilijan power plant, which is operated by Korean Electric Corp., through its subsidiary Kepco Ilijan Corp. Consequently, a line tripping affected Sual, Santa Rita, San Lorenzo and Quezon Power, respectively.

“We are trying to find out from NGCP what happened. We initially suspected the occurrence of low voltage. This caused the other plants to trip as well,” he said.

“Meralco’s load is about 7,000 MW, while Luzon’s demand is about 8,200 MW at peak. Essentially, we lost around half of the supply….The bulk of the areas [is] in Meralco’s franchise.”

Meanwhile, TeaM Energy Corp., operator of Sual, said the drop in grid frequency caused by the tripping of other plants resulted in an automatic trip of Sual Unit 1.

“This is a protective system meant to prevent major damage to our facility. We are currently trying to start up the plant. Barring any complications, it should be ready to provide electricity in one to two hours,” TeaM Energy added.

(Butch Fernandez and Jovee Marie N. dela Cruz)  source