by Myrna Velasco August 6, 2016
Two- to three-hour rolling blackouts
hit many parts of Metro Manila and several key provinces of Luzon yesterday,
stalling regular Friday activities and business operations starting from 10:41
a.m. to 5 p.m.
In a statement to the media, power
utility giant Manila Electric Company (Meralco) noted that the areas afflicted
with electricity service interruptions include Cavite, Laguna, and Rizal provinces;
and parts of Metro Manila.
Specifically, the areas stricken
were portions of Amadeo, Alfonso, Bacoor, Cavite City, Dasmariñas City, General
Trias, Imus, Indang, Kawit, Maragondon, Mendez-Nunez, Noveleta, Rosario,
Silang, Tagaytay City and parts of Liliw in Laguna. The province of Rizal was
also hit sweepingly, including Angono, Antipolo, Baras, Binangonan, Cainta,
Cardona, Morong, Pililla, Tanay, Taytay, and Teresa towns.
The Metro Manila areas hit by
blackouts include Makati, Marikina, Quezon City, Parañaque, Pasay City, Pasig
City, and Taguig.
“Manual load dropping of 2 to 3
hours up to 5 p.m. tentatively had been raised,” Meralco spokesperson Joe
Zaldarriaga noted. No advisories on brownout conditions were sent to
media from other parts of Luzon, primarily those that are served by electric
cooperatives and other distribution utilities.
Red alert condition was declared
anew yesterday by system operator National Grid Corporation of the Philippines
(NGCP) from 9:01 a.m. to 5 p.m. “due to tripping of (unit 2) of the Calaca
coal-fired plant.”
NGCP added that Malaya thermal plant
was “unable to synchronize (to the grid) due to fuel oil heater tube leak,”
while Malaya unit 2’s capacity had been de-rated at 280MW. Other plants with
limited generation capacity on Friday had been unit 1 of the Calaca coal-fired
plant at just 156MW; as well as the San Gabriel gas plant that is still at its
commissioning phase.
Energy Secretary Alfonso G. Cusi
told reporters on Friday, “the DOE is now closely looking at the possible
violations by these power (companies) given the current energy situation,”
stressing that “these debilitating power interruptions are in total violation
of the EPIRA (Electric Power Industry Reform Act).”
He reiterated the department’s
request to the ERC to “investigate the persistent brownouts and to take
appropriate actions, pursuant to their mandate to regulate industry players.”
The energy chief similarly noted his
instruction to the department’s power bureau “to conduct technical audits/plant
inspections prioritizing those that have forced outages.”
As this developed, a counterpart
call for investigation in the House of Representatives on power plant shutdowns
was lodged by Bayan Muna Representative Carlos Isagani Zarate.
The lawmaker wants a deeper scrutiny
of “the suspicious forced and scheduled shutdowns of power plants,” noting that
“the continued power alerts will inevitably lead to a power rate hike and this
should be probed considering that the same circumstances were present during
the 2013 Malampaya shutdown.”
Consumer advocacy group Citizen
Watch had been more ferocious of its assessment of the situation, labeling the
spate of power plant shutdowns as emblematic of ‘cartel-like behavior’ of the
generation companies.
It thus called on the Energy
Regulatory Commission (ERC) to immediately launch an investigation of such
incidents, “and prosecute the offenders” once established that they have had
misgivings in the past three weeks of distressing events in the power sector.
Citizen Watch Secretary General
Wilfred Wong noted “we are alarmed over this latest round of power plant
inefficiencies,” emphasizing the “similarly suspicious outages and shutdowns in
November, 2013 that drastically affected supply and consequently drove up
rates, to the disadvantage of consumers who will bear the brunt of the
increase.”
The group then put forward their
call “for a strict audit of the operational fitness of all existing power
plants, which can serve as an accurate base of what is really the actual and
dependable capacity in the grid.”
‘BLACKOUT’ OR ‘BROWNOUT’
Blackout is the general term for
power interruptions in various parts of the world, but the term ‘brownout’ had
been made uniquely Filipino, referring typically to rolling power
interruptions.
AVAILABLE CAPACITY
A report from the Philippine News
Agency said the power plants that went offline were: the 300-MW Calaca unit 2,
300-MW Malaya unit 1, 382-MW Pagbilao unit 2, 135-MW SLTEC unit 1, and 600-MW
Ilijan B.
The Calaca unit 1 and Malaya unit 2 meanwhile
have derated their capacities. (With a report from PNA)
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