CEBU -- Due to a demand in electricity that is higher than the supply, Cebu will continue to schedule brownouts, a Department of Energy (DOE) official said Thursday.
Aguinaldo Briones, DOE senior science research specialist, said for Thursday alone, the total power demand was 645 megawatts (MW) but the power produced by plants was only 295 MW so supply was short 350 MW.
Briones said the 295 MW was generated by six plants in Cebu and the supply from Leyte.
Toledo Power Corp.’s coal-fired plant was generating 50 MW; Toledo Power Corp.’s diesel plant 32 MW; Cebu Thermal Power Plant (CTPP) 1 had 45 MW; CTPP 2, 51 MW; Cebu Diesel Power Plant, 25 MW; Cebu Private Power Corp., 52 MW and the rest was from Leyte.
CTPP 1 and 2 and Cebu Diesel are operated by SPC Power Corp., which has a contract with the National Power Corp. to operate the Naga Power Plant Complex.
The 84-MW coal-fired power plant of the Cebu Energy Development Corp. in Toledo City that started operating last March was shut down for a scheduled preventive maintenance.
But Briones said even if the 84-MW plant will operate again, there is still a power supply deficit especially during peak hours of 10 a.m., 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. when majority of the consumers use air-conditioning units amid the dry and hot weather due to the El Niño phenomenon.
Meanwhile, Briones said the blackout that hit Cebu Wednesday happened after the power transmission line from Talisay City to Compostela town tripped thus preventing the entry of power supply from Leyte.
Leyte supplies power to the Cebu-Negros-Panay (CNP) grid and because the supply cannot pass through the Talisay-Compostela powerline, a blackout occurred especially in areas serviced by the Cebu Electric Cooperative (Cebeco) 1 and Cebeco 2, Briones said.
The blackout was a problem of the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP), a private firm that transmits power from the plants to the power distribution utilities, like the Visayan Electric Co. (Veco), Briones said.
Ethel Natera, Veco corporate communications manager, said Thursday they were advised by NGCP that the estimated power deficiency was 210 MW and Veco was asked to deload 120 MW.
But Natera said the highest they had deloaded was only 21 MW in the rotation brownouts that started at 8:40 a.m. Thursday. (EOB of Sun.Star Cebu)