Published
By Myrna M. Velasco
The integrity of
election results this May can be compromised by the occurrence of brownouts,
but the Department of Energy (DOE) and the power companies cannot give
full-proof assurance that electricity service interruptions will not happen
during the polling period.
When forthrightly asked
by the media if they can assure that brownouts will not happen during election
day, the energy department’s response was “it cannot tell”; while the power
generation companies (GenCos) cannot give certainty that additional plant
breakdowns will not happen.
At this point, the DOE
as well as Manila Electric Company (Meralco) can only assure that power supply
will be normal during the Holy Week break because demand is typically low on
such holiday lull.
The DOE had just given
word that it is pursuing contingency measures – including emergency power
supply procurement by Meralco; the deployment of generating sets (gensets) and
aligning the switch-on of interruptible loads in case power supply tightening
or shortages will transpire.
The government is also
betting on the fact that May 13 will be declared a holiday, so that will help
taper off electricity demand because many private and government offices will
be closed. Power loads, however, will be shifted into the precincts where
voting will be held.
“We have set up
protection measures, such as energy efficiency and we have policies to help
shore up supply,” Energy Undersecretary Felix William B. Fuentebella said.
The government, he
emphasized, will also closely coordinate with power generators and tighten its
watch on them so the simultaneous forced outages of power plants seen in the
past two weeks will not recur.
But Fuentebella
qualified there are certain technicalities in the system that could affect
electricity service – not just on the sphere of power generation, but also on
facets of transmission of electricity and up to the point when power supply is
distributed to end-users’ homes, businesses and office buildings.
The energy official
said what they can promise is “to do our best, as we will remain answerable to
all these,” – referring to the re-emergence of rotating brownouts during the
election period as well as on the contingency measures that they should be able
to enforce.
For the rest of the
Holy Week, the forecast of the DOE is “white alert” or normal condition in the
power system, giving certainty to the public then that brownouts will not
happen while they are observing the Lenten season.
The DOE said power
supply situation in the grid returned to normal following the grid
synchronization of unit 1 of the Sual coal-fired plant, which suffered
unplanned outage since last week.
“A normal condition for
the system means there will be no power interruptions,” the energy department
explained; although it further cautioned that “any additional forced outage or
de-ration of plants will worsen the situation.”
No comments:
Post a Comment