Tuesday, August 2, 2016

Sabotage causes line tripping that isolated plants from Mindanao grid



July 22, 2016 By Juzel L. Danganan, Philippine News Agency

MANILA, July 22 –The National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP) on Friday strongly condemned what it called an “act of sabotage” the throwing of a tree branch tied with a rope at NGCP’s Baloi Agus 2′s 138 kilovolt line 1 in Barangay Adapun Ali, Balo-I, Lanao del Norte last Wednesday morning.
Lawyer Cynthia D. Perez-Alabanza, NGCP spokesperson and head, Corporate Communications and Public Affairs, said in a statement that such “act of sabotage” directly caused the Baloi-Agus 2 138-kW transmission line to trip, which then isolated the Agus hydro plants, supplying power to the rest of Mindanao grid.
Earlier, NGCP was reported to have cut the power connection of the two units of the Agus hydroelectric plants, which have a total capacity of 82 megawatts, from the Mindanao grid, after a tree-branch attached to a rope damaged the plants’ transmission lines.
Perez-Alabanza clarified impression that NGCP deliberately cut off the power connection of the two units of the Agus hydroelectric plants.
She reiterated that unknown perpetrators’ act of sabotage (i.e. a tree branch tied with rope intentionally thrown at a transmission line) directly caused the Baloi-Agus 2 138 kV transmission line to trip, which isolated the Agus hydro plants supplying power to the rest of Mindanao grid.
NGCP appealed anew to the public to respect transmission right-of-way clearances to prevent power interruption and accidents.
Just a week ago, Line 2 of the same Baloi- Agus 2 line was similarly sabotaged. Line 2 has been out since July 12 after unknown persons maliciously erected a bamboo pole within the NGCP’s right of way corridor, causing the transmission line to trip.
Attempts to re-energize the line failed after claimant over the property refused NGCP access to the transmission lines to conduct restoration activities.

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