Power agencies say isolated outages on Election Day ‘negligible’

MANILA, Philippines — Isolated power outages on Monday were considered “negligible” by government energy agencies, as the power supply situation remained normal during the election period.

Irma Exconde, assistant director at the Electric Power Industry Management Bureau at the DOE said in a briefing on Monday that “all are normal as we expected.”

As of 1 p.m. Monday, power supply reserves in Luzon remained huge at 3,550 megawatts; 748 MW in Visayas; and 166 MW in Mindanao, Exconde said.

“Although there were some locations that were reported to have experienced power outages, the Election Power Task Force emphasizes that appropriate action was promptly undertaken and power was restored immediately in these areas through the coordinated efforts of the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines, electric cooperatives and distribution utilities,” the DOE added.

Exconde explained that the power outages reported on Monday were due mainly to transmission problems, internal incidents and heavy rains in certain areas, and not due to supply and generation problems. These, however, were easily resolved, as most outages lasted only a few minutes, while the longest recorded was about three hours.

Within the franchise area of power distributor Manila Electric Co., the only major disturbance recorded was the tripping of an NGCP-owned transmission line, which caused power outages in four voting centers in Dasmariñas, Cavite. The situation was resolved by 2:30 p.m. Monday.

“The task force has been prompt in their action with regard to [addressing] power situation [problems]. The durations are not that long and we thus we assume that it did not affect the election process. As far as we know, even if there were interruptions, the machines have backup batteries,” Exconde said.

The comfortable reserves level in Luzon may have been partly boosted with the commercial operation of the 600-megawatt coal-fired power plant of GN Power in Mariveles, Bataan, which started contributing 490 MW to the Luzon grid only last Saturday.

Mindanao’s rosy power supply situation was boosted by the 26 MW coming from the Alcantara-led Mapalad diesel power facility, and by the 5 MW of additional capacity contributed by Bukidnon-based sugar miller Crystal Sugar Co. Inc.

“At the distribution level, Meralco, as well as other private distribution utilities and electric cooperatives nationwide are on heightened alert to respond immediately should there be reports of power interruptions in polling precincts and canvassing centers,” the DOE said.