‘Bush fire caused May 8 blackout’

MANILA, Philippines - The power outage that hit Luzon on May 8 started with a bush fire in Talisay, Batangas, initial investigation conducted by the Department of Energy (DOE) showed.

Initial reports also showed that the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP), the country’s transmission highway operator, was responsible for the tripping that caused the power outage, Energy Secretary Carlos Jericho Petilla said in a briefing yesterday. “Tripping is the responsibility of the NGCP. They are the franchisee of the lines,” he said.

Petilla said NGCP’s auto protection system should have prevented the outage from spreading following the bush fire.

“We are asking them to explain. We’ll ask them why the DC power supply did not kick in,” he said.

The Luzon-wide power outage gripped the country from 1:51 p.m. to 11 p.m.

Initial reports said the power deficiency stemmed from Team Energy’s Sual Power Plant in Quezon but the DOE later clarified that the problem started from the Calaca Coal Power plant, which is operated by Semirara Mining Corp.

The NGCP, however, said that its Calaca-Bian 230 kilovolt line tripped. It caused a system disturbance and affected other plants.

At least 3,700 megawatts went offline, and affected the 1,218 MW Sual power station in Pangasinan, the Ilijan power plant, First Gas Power’s 1000 MW Santa Rita and 500 MW San Lorenzo plants and the Quezon power plant.

Meanwhile, First Gas Philippine Holdings of the Lopez Group told the Philippine Stock Exchange that a fire hit one of the transformers of First Gas Power’s San Lorenzo plant yesterday.

“The fire has since been put out less than 20 minutes after it was first detected. In the meantime, the San Lorenzo power plant’s generating capacity has been reduced to 250 megawatt from 500 MW. The incident is being investigated,” First Philippine Holdings said.