Millions of Filipino consumers extremely suffered from three-hour rotational brownouts enforced in various areas in Luzon, including Metro Manila, and this harrowing situation was well-anticipated, persisting for 13 hours from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. yesterday.
As of noon yesterday, 1.38 million customers have been tormented by brownouts in the franchise area of the Manila Electric Co. alone. Customers of electric cooperatives were equally affected by power interruptions after five power plants in the grid had been hurriedly plagued with forced outages.
Energy Secretary Alfonso G. Cusi called for an emergency meeting with generation companies and other relevant industry stakeholders yesterday. No announcements have been made on matters discussed in that gathering.
Meralco started implementing manual load dropping or rolling brownouts in various parts of its service areas at 9 a.m. and carried on until 10 p.m.
In Metro Manila, all major cities and municipalities were affected by the rotational brownouts – widespread through Quezon City, Manila, Valenzuela City, Caloocan City, Las Pinas City, Muntinlupa City, Paranaque City, Taguig City, Pasay City, Marikina City, Pasig City, Makati City, and Mandaluyong City. The severity of the situation prompted experts to label this as “blackouts” instead of brownouts.
Outside of Metro Manila, provinces that had power interruptions were Bulacan, Rizal, Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, and Quezon, and the extremity of power interruptions was felt starting at 12 noon, according to the advisory of Meralco.
Meralco spokesperson Joe Zaldarriaga said electricity service interruptions in other areas were announced at 3 p.m., 6 p.m., and 9 p.m.
The Meralco executive said that there had been no power supply available and their call for interruptible loads or for consumers with generating sets to switch on their facilities had been fully exhausted.
System operator National Grid Corp. of the Philippines in its advisory expressly stated that the grid was on “generation deficiency” or lack of supply and had “zero contingency reserve” because of series of forced outages of power plants.
The same generating facilities were still on unplanned outages as of yesterday – the 150-megawatt Unit 2 of San Miguel Consolidated Power Corp. or Limay plant; 647-MW Unit 1 of the Sual coal-fired power facility also of the San Miguel group; 150-MW Unit 2 of the South Luzon Power Generation Corp. of the Consunji group; 420-MW Pagbilao 3 plant of Aboitiz Power and TeaM Energy Philippines; and the 135-MW South Luzon Thermal Energy Corp. of the Ayala Group.
Power facilities on de-rated capacities or with un-optimized electricity generation had been Unit 2 of the Calaca coal-fired plant of the Consunji group and Unit 1 of the Malaya thermal facility of government-owned Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corp.
Aside from the 13 hours of red alerts or brownout conditions in Luzon, NGCP also raised yellow alert the rest of the day until 11 p.m. or close to midnight. Based on NGCP data, 1,502 MW had been out from the system due to forced outages of power plants while additional 250 MW had been due to capacity de-rating of the other plants. (Myrna Velasco)