One-hour brownouts in some parts of city

CEBU, Philippines - Some areas in Cebu City experienced a one-hour power interruption as early as 10 a.m. yesterday after the Toledo Power Corporation-Cebu Thermal Power Plant I had to do an emergency shutdown due to leakage in its main cooling system at shortly past midnight yesterday.

Belinda Sales-Canlas, regional corporate communications officer of the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (formerly National Transmission Corporation) said that the said power plant contributes 58 to 60 MW to the Cebu-Negros-Panay grid.

NGCP-Visayas however said that Toledo Power Corp.-Cebu Thermal Plant I went on stream at 1:05 p.m. yesterday, but on limited capacity at 29 MW until 3 p.m.

Canlas added that at 9:24 a.m. yesterday, power barge 103 generated 10 MW to augment the power supply deficiency experienced by the CNP grid.

She said that the Palinpinon Geothermal Plant in Valencia, Negros Oriental and Salcon Power Plant in Naga, Cebu were not operating on their rated capacity and they reduced generation caused by the implementation of the manual load drop or reduction scheme which afflicted the CNP grid for the past four days excluding the weekend.

Canlas said that the loss of 60 MW from the grid, the NGCP-Regional Area Control Center opted to implement manual load drop or manual load reduction in Cebu City under the Visayan Electric Company Inc., which reduced load by 10 megawatts starting at 10:06 a.m.

The Negros grid reduced by 5.5 MW at 10:04 a.m and the Panay grid reduced load by 4.5 MW at 10:15 a.m. to prevent overloading of the 230-kilovolt Leyte-Cebu submarine cable.

Sales said that power supply was restored at 10:59 a.m. for Veco, 11:12 a.m. for Negros and 11:16 a.m. for Panay.

Yesterday afternoon, another round of load shedding was implemented starting at 1 p.m.

Canlas said that the combined reduced load yesterday afternoon totaled 30.6 MW while the combined reduced load yesterday morning was 20 MW.

The Luzon grid was tapped to augment the lack of power in the Visayas.

As a result of the power shortage, VECO had to cut power in some of its franchise areas.

VECO spokesperson Ethel Natera said that the power outage affected barangay Ermita, N. Bacalso, Basak and Inawayan, all in Cebu City. Power was restored at 11:00 a.m. yesterday.

Aside from these areas, affected by the brownout were in the area along Mango Avenue, Echavez, Zapatera, Ramos, Gorordo, Escario, Sambag I and II, all in Cebu City. Power was restored in one hour.

Natera said that they expected a 34 MW power shortage, but several companies opted not to get power from VECO under their interruptible load program to prevent the spread of brownouts to residential areas.

Metro Ayala, Metro Mandaue, San Miguel Corporation, A.D. Gothong and E-Mall deloaded a total of 7.5 MW from 10 to 11 a.m. as SM and Ayala Center deloaded 6 MW in the afternoon.

VECO deloaded a total of 18.5 MW from its manual load program, which eventually shortened the time of power outage and prevented it from further spreading to other areas.

 It maybe recalled that for the past few days, the Palimpinon Geothermal Power Plant reduced power generation from 94 to 83 MW.

While the Salcon Power Plant reduced power generation from 47 to 40 MW.

While the two units of power barge 103 located in Panay operated only during evening peak in preparation for its regular dry docking schedule. — Mitchelle L. Palaubsanon/NLQ (THE FREEMAN)