10-hour rotating blackouts bedevil Mindanao

DAVAO CITY, Philippines – The rotating daily blackouts now prevailing in Mindanao now last as long as 10 hours, one week after the island-wide power interruption last Thursday.

The National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP) placed the power situation outlook for Mindanao yesterday at a shortage of 134 megawatts from the peak of 1,128 MW to the actual supply of 994 MW.

The daily power outage in key areas such as Zamboanga City, Cotabato City, General Santos City and Cagayan de Oro City lasts from five to 10 hours.

In Davao City, a two-hour rotating blackout has been implemented since last week.

The power shortage is also attributed to the shutdown of the coal-fired power plant of Steag State Power Inc. (SPI) based in Misamis Oriental with its two 150-MW turbine generators still undergoing restoration. SPI contributes 300 MW to the Mindanao grid.

According to SPI spokesman Jerome Soldevilla, the plant could be fully operational in eight to 12 weeks based on the initial findings of the ongoing technical evaluation.

Soldevilla said both units went offline after sustaining damage to its turbine-generators at the height of the Mindanao-wide grid system disturbance last Feb. 27.

SPI plant manager Carsten Evers said the company has intensified its efforts to get the units back on line.

Evers gave assurance that the SPI is coordinating closely with the Department of Energy, the National Power Corp. and the NGCP to address the problem.

“Our priority now is to restore the units back on line and ease up the critical power supply condition of Mindanao,” said Evers, adding that SPI employees are working round-the-clock to restore the power plant.

SPI’s power plant is currently Mindanao’s biggest in terms of unit capacity, accounting for nearly a fifth of the island’s total electricity supply.