ILOILO City – The entire Panay Island and the island province of Guimaras suffered from hours-long power interruption yesterday.
A “system disturbance” in the Panay sub grid at around 11:24 a.m. caused a blackout in the provinces of Aklan, Antique, Capiz, Iloilo, and Guimaras, according to the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP).
All power industry players from generation, transmission and distribution were affected.
Reagan Alcantara, lead specialist of NGCP’s public relations department, said yesterday they could not yet pinpoint the cause of the problem.
Their investigation was ongoing as of this writing.
“Wala pa kita sang definite information, isa pa ina sa gina-check namon sa NGCP. Damo kita nalantaw. There are so many moving parts once the grid is working so we have to check kon diin gid naghalin,” said Alcantara.
While tracing of the cause was ongoing, he said they also focused their efforts in expediting power restoration efforts in affected areas.
As of 2:24 p.m. yesterday, NGCP was able to restore power transmission services to its affected customers in Panay and was just waiting for the synchronization of affected power plants back to the grid.
However, NGCP warned consumers of rotating power interruptions since the current supply is sourced from renewable plants.
“Ang linya nabalik na (but) ang supply is another thing. Depende pa na sa availability sa generation kag ang sa loading. Indi pa insigida kabalik pa tanan. Ongoing pa ang pasulod sang supply sang different cooperatives and distribution utilities,” Alcantara further explained.
On the part of MORE Electric and Power Corporation (MORE Power) – Iloilo City’s sole power distributor – as of 6 p.m. yesterday it was able to energize La Paz feeders 1, 2, 4, and 5; Molo feeders 2, 4 and 5; City Proper feeders 1, 2 and 4; Jaro Feeder 1; Mandurriao Feeder 4; and Megaworld Feeder 1.
In its advisory, MORE Power said additional feeders will be energized as soon as they receive the necessary megawatt (MW) from NGCP.
“We appreciate your patience and understanding, as the timing of the energization depends on the availability of MW,” it added.
Meantime, as of 6 p.m. also., several parts of Panay or a total of 11 feeders have not yet been energized.
“Additional feeders will be energized as soon as we receive the necessary megawatt from NGCP,” the announcement said.
NGCP also noted that the Aklan Electric Cooperative’s (Akelco) franchise area was experiencing issues unrelated to the system disturbance.
NGCP assured they are ready to provide transmission services upon the advice of the said cooperative./PN
