"Auto-trip" causes massive brownouts

An independent power producer supplying power to Philippine National Oil Company located in Leyte tripped off last Sunday night causing power outages in many parts of Luzon and Visayas.

But the National Transmission Commission swiftly denied allegations the incident has something to do with plans for a coup d'etat or to destabilize the government by disrupting power distribution amid the political crisis in the country.

The tripping of the geothermal plants in Leyte caused massive brownouts that started at 10:34 p.m. and ended at 1:27 a.m. yesterday.

The power outage occurred when Leyte-A, an IPP-owned by California Energy under a build-operation-transfer scheme agreement with the Philippine National Oil Corporation and the Tongonan Geothermal Power Plant "auto-tripped" with a total generation of 592 megawatts.

According to Transco, about 300 MWs of supply was dispatched to Luzon while 292 MWs was shared by the Cebu-Negros-Panay grid and Bohol at the time of the outage of the plant's submarine cables.

Benjamin Ypil, Transco's information officer said initial reports sent to their office said the tripping of the geothermal plant in Leyte was due to over voltage, which caused the plant's protection device to automatically shut off to prevent further damage to the plant.

He admitted that they received complaints and queries about the incident associating it with the recent political turmoil in the country but he clarified that the problem was purely technical.

"They are now investigating the cause why it auto-tripped when in fact it was Sunday and the demand for electricity was low," Ypil added.

The restoration of supply immediately started when the first feeder was energized at 10:52 p.m. shortly after the plant outage while the last feeder was restored at 1:27 a.m. yesterday.

Crispin Lamayan, Transco's systems operations assistant vice president said the load dispatch center placed the total outage duration at two hours and 53 minutes.

He added that they have scheduled a meeting today with the Leyte-A, Tongonan Geothermal Power Plant, District III of Transco covering Leyte and Samar, Power System Maintenance Department and systems operations to determine the cause of the plant's outage and to prevent occurrence of the same incident in the future.