Manila Bulletin
by Nonoy E. Lacson
March 3, 2014
Zamboanga City – This city continues to suffer from six to nine hours of daily brownouts as a result of the massive power failure that struck Mindanao last Feb. 27. At 3:53 a.m. that day, the entire island was blanketed in darkness for still unclear reason.
The business community in this city is now losing millions of pesos in sales and income due to the daily brownouts imposed since last Thursday by the Zamboanga City Electric Cooperative (Zamcelco).
Residents have been asking Zamcelco management why the city is still suffering from long rotational and daily brownouts considering that the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) reported last Feb. 28 that the Mindanao grid had already been fully re-energized as of 12:18 p.m. on Feb. 27.
In a statement sent to the Manila Bulletin last Saturday, the Department of Energy (DOE) said they were closely monitoring the power situation in Mindanao, adding that an investigation on the root cause of the system-wide shutdown was underway.
The NGCP reported that the Mindanao system demand stood at 785 MW while the supply was at 853 MW, thus having a 93-MW reserve, at around 3:52 a.m. on Feb. 27 when all the lights went out.
Residents in this city, however, claimed that Mindanao is suffering from low power generation, hence electric cooperatives are now receiving reduced power allocations.
The DOE said initial reports indicated that a tripping of the power lines occurred, emanating from the breaker of a switchyard in a power plant.
The DOE and National Transmission Corporation (TransCo) are still gathering information to validate the reports from the National Power Corporation (NPC), the Independent Power Producers (IPPs) and NGCP, the DOE statement said. source
