DOE beefs up teams to ensure power supply on May 9 elections

by Myrna Velasco April 1, 2016

http://www.mb.com.ph/doe-beefs-up-teams-to-ensure-power-supply-on-may-9-elections/

To avoid blackouts-marred outcome, the Department of Energy (DOE) has beefed up contingencies and even teams to ensure sufficient and reliable electricity supply and service during the May 9 polls.

Energy Secretary Zenaida Y. Monsada said there are now two task forces sorting out issues relative to power supply during the election period – these are the Power Task Force comprising of industry players and the Inter-Agency Task Force on Securing Energy Facilities.”

In a briefing with reporters, Monsada similarly noted that around 220 megawatts of embedded modular generating sets would be deployed – primarily in critical areas in Mindanao.

She added that “various national agencies and power stakeholders are continuing preparatory works, maintenance and monitoring to provide power supply come election period.”

In particular, she told media that Manila Electric Company (Meralco) has been checking all of its facilities, including sockets and electrical connections at polling precincts, just to make sure that they would not fail during the critical hours on election day.

The distribution firm, Monsada emphasized, has already completed roughly 70-percent of its monitoring and repair activities – and that is anticipated fully done before May 9.

For Mindanao, all concerned stakeholders will be involved in a ‘blackout simulation activity’ next week so they could further assess the areas and industry segments where they would need to improve on.

Supply-wise, the DOE assured that it would be sufficient. The worries would just rely solely on forced outages of generating plants or if bombing of transmission towers would recur.

Monsada explained “the reliability of transmission lines is a concern of everyone, citing that even if power plants are generating sufficient electricity, but if it cannot be transmitted due to tripping and toppling of transmission lines and towers, then there will be power shortages in the affected areas.”

It would then help, she said, that public vigilance would be factored in into the equation – especially so since the “sanctity of the ballots” will set the future of the country.

On the never-ending right-of-way dilemmas at transmission towers, the energy chief has reiterated her call on “the landowners/claimants, local government units and individual households for cooperation and vigilance for the integrity of the transmission facilities nationwide.”