Agus 1 tripping caused Mindanao blackout, DOE’s Petilla says

Business Mirror

28 Feb 2014

 

Written by Marvyn Benaning with ABS-CBNnews.com

The Department of Energy (DOE) has revealed the cause of the blackout that hit parts of Mindanao on Thursday.

Energy Secretary Carlos L. Jericho L. Petilla said an initial report showed the blackout was caused by a malfunction at the Agus 1 power plant in Lanao del Norte.

“Ang lumalabas na initial report, but we will verify this sa logger, makikita natin doon ang timeline ng pagbagsak, ay ’yung Agus 1 area sa Lanao del Norte, dito nagsimula ’yung tripping. Whether ang planta ang nag-trip o linya ng NGCP [National Grid Corp. of the Philippines], transmission, ’yan ang inalaam natin ngayon,” he told dzMM.

“Tsine-check natin ngayon ’yung mga auto-protection switches kung gumana ba ito o hindi gumana at saan banda ang nag-fail. Basically, itong Agus 1, maliit lang ito na planta, mga 30 to 45 megawatts [MW],” he added.

Petilla said the problem at Agus 1 was fixed by Thursday afternoon, and electricity supply was restored in the affected areas.

The DOE chief said they will still investigate the incident, together with NGCP and the power plant.

Asked if the blackout was caused by sabotage, Petilla said the initial report showed there was no trace of sabotage, although he was not ruling it out yet.

Also, Petilla said the Steag 200-MW coal-fired power plant in Cagayan de Oro was still not operating as of Thursday night. The plant is expected to start running again by Friday morning.

Aquino bungling

Former Party-list Rep. Teddy Casiño of Bayan Muna has slammed President Aquino for bungling anew in Mindanao after the entire island-region was plunged into darkness, with the outage crippling major cities and towns.

Casiño said the critical power situation in Mindanao has not been solved in the past five years, with the Aquino administration exacerbating it, as illustrated by the fact that 57 percent of all barangays hit by Typhoon Pablo in Southern Mindanao two years ago still does not have electricity.

He added that the Aquino administration claimed to have poured in billions for rehabilitation of the typhoon-ravaged areas but still could not provide electricity.

The former Bayan Muna lawmaker, now the spokesman of the People Opposed to Unwarranted Electricity Rates (Power), expressed alarm over Mr. Aquino’s alleged failure to solve the problem.

Casiño said the DOE remained clueless as to the cause of the island-wide outage 24 hours after it happened.

“Maybe it’s time Energy Secretary Jericho Petilla look for another job, probably as undersecretary of the Department of Social Welfare and Development, where he can better tend to his constituents in disaster-struck Leyte,” Casiño suggested.

“Unfortunately, Mindanao’s power woes will get worse because the DOE under Petilla is bent on implementing the Interim Mindanao Electricity Market [Imem], a clone of the dreaded Wholesale Electricity Spot Market [WESM] in Luzon that caused power rates to spike last November and December, making Meralco seek a P4.15 power-rate hike in December and another P5.33 hike in January,” he added.

“Worse than WESM, which operates in Luzon’s limited power supply, Imem will be operating in Mindanao where there is an acute power shortage. This will definitely lead to even higher prices, with power generators having a heyday manipulating the spot market,” Casiño warned.

“If Imem is allowed to continue operating, the same WESM schemes, like high clearing prices and automatic pass-through charges, will be experienced by electricity consumers all over Mindanao, leading to higher rates,” he said.

Already, Mindanao’s electric cooperatives are up in arms over Imem’s more than P200 million in excess billing from November 26 to December 25, when it charged the cooperatives for electricity that allegedly was neither ordered nor delivered.

The co-ops have refused to pay the charges and are poised to ask the courts to declare Imem illegal.

Imem is managed by the Philippine Electric Market Corp., the same agency that oversees WESM, Casiño said.  source