Danessa Rivera (The Philippine Star)
- July 7, 2019 - 12:00am
MANILA, Philippines — State-run
National Electrification Administration (NEA) and Japan International
Cooperation Agency (JICA) have piloted a smart grid technology that is seen to
improve the reliability of a Batangas cooperative’s distribution system and
prevent power interruptions.
The JICA-backed Distribution
Automation System (DAS) was recently commissioned in Batangas II Electric Cooperative
Inc. (BATELEC II), which was selected as the pilot site to demonstrate the
effectiveness of the techno-logy.
The DAS technology is designed to
reduce the duration of power outage and improve the distribution system
reliability through automation.
BATELEC II general manager Octavious
Mendoza said power reliability is one of their perennial problems.
“We hope that if this will become
successful, we can replicate this in all our feeders all over our franchise
area, and so we can compete globally with other distribution utilities,” he
said.
JICA tapped the expertise of TEPCO
Power Grid and its affiliated firm Takaoka Toko Co., Ltd (TKTK) to work with
NEA and BATELEC II for the pilot implementation of the DAS.
TKTK president Toshiro Takebe said
they have introduced the DAS in Japan and are bringing it overseas.
“I hope the significance of
this system will be well noticed by prompt fault location, remote switching,
and reducing outage duration,” he said.
NEA engineering department manager
Ferdinand Villareal said the project is seen as an essential tool to help
electric cooperatives (ECs) improve their electricity service.
“This technology from Japan is hoped
to effectively address specific technological challenges of ECs that affect
their operational efficiency, more particularly the distribution system
reliability,” he said.
The project was implemented under a
JICA collaboration program with the private sector to disseminate Japanese
technologies for electricity distribution system and management in the Philippines.
No comments:
Post a Comment