Posted on March 04, 2014 11:26:49 PM
By Claire-Ann C. Feliciano, Reporter
MINDANAO RESIDENTS will have to continue dealing with rotating brownouts as repairs to a 210-megawatt (MW) coal-fired power plant, which accounts for around a fifth of the island’s power supply, are expected to take a "substantial amount of time."
STEAG State Power, Inc. (SPI), the plant’s owner and operator, said it would take weeks to complete work at the Misamis Oriental facility, which tripped -- along with other power plants -- and caused a Mindanao-wide outage last Thursday.
The Energy department has said two- to three-hour brownouts would persist as long as the STEAG plant remained offline.
SPI said the plant’s two 105-MW units sustained heavy damage to their turbine generating sets.
"Based on the initial results of the ongoing inspection and comprehensive technical evaluation of the turbine units, SPI will need substantial amount of time to restore the units back online," the firm announced.
SPI Power Plant Manager Carsten Evers said "the repair of the units may last for several weeks or more."
"We understand and recognize the precarious and very volatile power supply condition of Mindanao and we would like to assure all our stakeholders, especially the power consumers, that SPI is working round-the-clock to restore the units back online," Mr. Evers added.
A more definite schedule is expected to be announced in the next few days.
"SPI will provide periodic updates on the progress and development of the restoration works and is working closely with the Department of Energy (DoE), the National Power Corporation (Napocor) and other members of the energy sector of Mindanao in addressing the issue," the company noted.
Napocor, in a separate statement, said it was continuing to work with the Energy department in identifying the blackout’s cause.
Last Friday, National Grid Corp. of the Philippines traced the outage to a malfunction of one of the circuit breakers of the Agus 1 hydroelectric power plant in Lanao del Sur.
"The NPC (Napocor) has already submitted the data logs of its power plants in Mindanao to the DoE," Napocor President Gladys Cruz-Sta. Rita yesterday said.
The data logs are expected to help identify the sequence of events that led to the tripping of Mindanao’s power plants.
"We are working closely with other electric power stakeholders in order to ensure the seamless operations of the state-owned power plants in Mindanao that contributes to the power supply adequacy and reliability of the Mindanao grid," Ms. Cruz-Sta. Rita added.
Energy Secretary Carlos Jericho L. Petilla, meanwhile, said in a text message: "We will issue a circular instructing the operation of all existing generating capacity in Mindanao."
The system-wide Mindanao outage came less than a year after significant parts of Luzon experienced a 10-hour blackout. The cause of that outage was attributed to a transmission line malfunction. source
