Electricity supply in Panay Island has been restored last Friday but parties and agencies with jurisdiction of the island-wide power interruption that occurred last week remain unsure of its root cause.
The National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) in a statement reiterated its earlier pronouncements there was no transmission disturbance before the tripping of the Panay Energy Development Corp. (PEDC) unit 1’s 83 megawatts at 12:06 p.m. of January 2.
It said after this event, NGCP was able to recover the transmission system and normalize voltage until several power plants inexplicably tripped at 2:19 p.m. of the same day.
“We are firm in our position that the system prior to the 2:19 p.m. multiple tripping was normal and our actions were undertaken within protocols. Any contrary statement is speculative,” the company said, as it reiterated its push for a comprehensive industry-wide approach to resolve the persistent power supply issues on Panay Island and elsewhere in the country.
The Department of Energy (DOE) reminded NGCP of the need to implement the Transmission Development Plan (TDP), which outlines essential expansion and modernization projects for the transmission system to ensure the reliable and efficient delivery of electricity throughout the country.
The DOE said the widespread power disturbance in Panay Island could have been prevented had the NGCP completed on time the 230 kiloVolt Cebu-Negros-Panay (CNP) backbone project which is a major part of the TDP.
Based on the 2016 TDP, NGCP was supposed to have completed the CNP 230 kV backbone project in 2020 but the completion date has been delayed at least seven times from the original completion date of December 2020. As of October 2023, the project is 99.64 percent completed, but the estimated completion time is yet to be assessed.
“In the sequence of events that were presented during the various meetings on the Panay incident, the NGCP failed to show clear indication that it had prudently exercised its authority to balance supply and demand in the Panay Grid, specifically at the onset of the tripping of PEDC Unit 1 which contributed to the voltage problem in the area,” said DOE Assistant Secretary Mario Marasigan, in a separate statement.
Meanwhile, Sen. Francis Escudero yesterday said revoking the franchise of the NGCP, as proposed by Sen. Raffy Tulfo, Committee on Energy chairman, is not possible since there are no companies capable of transmitting electricity from power generating companies to distribution utilities.
In an interview with radio dzBB, Escudero said NGCP is a “natural monopoly” and that giving back the transmission operations to the government is “illogical.”
Tulfo has scheduled a hearing on the Panay Islands power outage on Wednesday. – With Raymond Africa
