3 HOURS DAILY BROWNOUTS TO CONTINUE IN MINDANAO

By Euan Paulo C. Añonuevo, InterAksyon.com

MANILA – Mindanao’s lone coal plant has yet to return online after the facility sustained damage from the island-wide blackout that hit the region last week.

Jerome R. Soldevilla, STEAG State Power Inc spokesman, said the company continues to work on the restoration of two 105-megawatt (MW) generating units of the Mindanao coal plant.

The power facility was knocked out “after sustaining partial damage to its turbine generating sets brought about by the reported Mindanao grid system’s disturbance on February 27, 2014,” he said.

STEAG State Power is owned by Steag GmbH, which is one of the largest electricity producers in Germany.

Its power plant, which is located at the PHIVIDEC Industrial Estate in Villanueva, Misamis Oriental, accounts for about 20 percent of Mindanao’s total power supply.

With the plant down, two to three hours of rotating brownouts are expected to hit certain areas in Mindanao during peak hours, or between 6-9 p.m., depending on how distribution utilities or electric cooperatives manage demand.

Initial reports indicated that the power interruption was caused by the tripping of several power plants in Mindanao, which started from the state-owned Agus 1 in Marawi City. All-in-all, a total of 677 MW, which accounts for roughly 70 percent of Mindanao’s power generating capacity, was cut off from the grid.

The Department of Energy is still investigating the cause of the trip.

“While we are concerned to determine the root cause, what we immediately did is to bring back power first,” Energy Secretary Carlos Jericho Petilla said, adding that “thorough technical investigation is being undertaken to determine the root cause of the blackout and be able to take immediate actions to prevent similar incident in the future.”