Despite ‘minor’ interruptions, power supply ‘normal’ on Election Day–DOE

Business Mirror

Published on Monday, 13 May 2013 19:30

Written by InterAksyon.com

EXCEPT for “minor” interruptions, the Department of Energy (DOE) said power supply on Election Day had been “normal” so far.

In a press conference held inside the compound of the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP), Energy Assistant Director Irma C. Exconde said a number of power-supply interruptions hit scattered areas across the country, but had been resolved.

“Generally, it’s normal. If there are interruptions, it is briefly addressed. Walang major power interruption na prolonged. Based on my observation, relatively mas unti pa nga compared to other years,” she said.

Most of the power interruptions were brought about by troubles in the operations of distributors such as power line and pole troubles, system tripping, etc.

The outages lasted from a few minutes to a couple of hours, Exconde said. “Because the duration was not that long, we assume it did not affect the election process,” she said.

In Manila Electric Co.’s (Meralco) franchise area, the Ricardo P. Cruz Elementary School in Taguig City was hit by an outage after air-conditioning units were turned on in the polling precinct past 7 a.m.

Joe R. Zaldarriaga, Meralco spokesman, said power has been restored to the precinct, but cautioned the public against bringing or using unnecessary electrical appliance to polling centers to avoid similar cases of system overloading.

Besides Taguig City, four precincts in Dasmariñas City in Cavite also had been cut off from electricity starting 12:10 p.m., Zaldarriaga said.

Both officials said an investigation was ongoing to determine the cause of the outage.

As of 1:58 p.m., power to three of the four precincts had been restored.

Exconde said DOE projections indicate the entire Luzon, the Visayas and Mindanao will have normal power-supply condition throughout the day.

“We expect, also for Mindanao, normal condition despite rotating brownouts the past months,” she said. Based on data from the NGCP, demand in Luzon for today may peak at 6,366 megawatts (MW) while available capacity stands at 9,188 MW providing a comfortable capacity reserve. 

The Visayas peak demand is projected at 1,302 MW, while capacity at 1,789 MW giving the region reserves of about 487 MW.   source

InterAksyon.com