The power situation in Negros Oriental and other parts of the Visayas may improve in the coming days following the partial restoration of power in the Leyte grid that was devastated by the July 6, 2017 earthquake.
Michelle Visera, Corporate Communications Regional Officer of the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) on Monday said Dumaguete City and other parts of Negros Oriental may not experience rotating brownouts today as there is no advisory of manual load dropping.
For weeks now, other parts of the Visayas had to bear at least one-hour rotating brownouts following power supply deficit in the region due to the damaged Leyte grid.
In its latest advisory at 2 p.m. Monday, the NGCP said it continues its Visayas restoration efforts for facilities affected by the July 6 earthquake.
As of July 17, three of six transformers (two 138/69kV and one 230/138kV transformers) are now energized with Transformer 4 online at 8:49 a.m. today, the NGCP advisory said. The remaining three 230/138kV transformers are still under observation.
In light of information from test results of Ormoc transformer 6 and additional need for testing and corrective repair, technical experts do not recommend energization on July 19. The new target is set to July 23, still subject to satisfactory test results, NGCP added.
The islands of Leyte, Samar, Bohol, and Biliran will still continue to experience rotating power interruptions, particularly during peak hours, due to Ormoc Substation transformer limitations.
NGCP’s Ormoc-Tongonan 138kV line has been ready since July 8 to transmit as much as 112MW from Greencore. Greencore committed to supply 40MW out of its 70MW pre-earthquake capacity by July 19.
Power situation in Cebu, Negros, and Panay will also improve with the synchronization of KSPC after its scheduled maintenance and the increasing generation output of EDC geothermal plants.
All other parallel strategies, particularly the hauling of transformers from Cebu and reconfiguration of 230kV to 138kV lines, are ongoing and ready for implementation, respectively.
Meanwhile, the Negros Oriental Electric Cooperative II (NORECO II) has appealed to its member-consumers in Dumaguete and other parts of the province for understanding regarding the rotating brownouts in its coverage area which it does not “have control of”.
NORECO II in a statement said it is the NGCP that decides on the Manual Load Dropping due to the generation deficiency in the Visayas and they are only dependent on NGCP as to the schedules and how much power to load shed at any given time.
“(We) cannot give our MCOs the warning as to the specific time and the areas that will be affected by the power outage”, NORECO II said. (Judy Flores Partlow)
