Saturday, November 17, 2007 No power in 30 towns, 5 cities
TECHNICAL problems in the Tabango, Leyte cable terminal station and at the Cebu Thermal Power Plant (CTTP) 2 in Naga City, Cebu resulted in brownouts in 30 towns and five cities in Cebu yesterday.
The franchise areas of Cebu Electric Cooperative (Cebeco) 1 and 2, which cover 28 towns and three cities, had no power for more than four hours in the morning and three hours in the afternoon.
And there was no power also from Linao, Talisay City to San Fernando town, which is under the Visayan Electric Co.’s (Veco) franchise area, for almost an hour.
Veco spokesperson Ethel Natera said power in their Naga sub-station tripped off at 7:53 a.m. and was restored only at 8:47 a.m.
The brownouts happened a day after a blackout that was caused by lightning, which struck an overhead transmission cable in the Malitbog-Tabango, Leyte area that was connected to the Leyte-Cebu submarine cables.
That resulted in the automatic protective shutdown of the CTTP 2, which produces 56.8 megawatts. Another Naga plant, the Cebu Diesel Power Plant, could not be used after it underwent preventive maintenance service starting Nov. 6.
As to yesterday’s power outage, Transco spokesman Ben Ypil said that a problem on the Tabango station reactor forced them to implement manual load dropping, or the implementation of rotating brownouts.
Technical personnel were flown to Tabango yesterday to correct the problem on the reactor—a “protection equipment that helps regulate voltage level and prevents any abnormal voltage fluctuations.”
Ypil said Transco stabilized supply for the Cebu-Negros-Panay grid by 5 p.m., or before the peak hours from 5:30 p.m. to 8 p.m.
He said the CTTP 2 failed to supply power on two occasions before the problem was fixed. The plant started generating power around 4 p.m.
He said that power from the Leyte-Cebu interconnection dipped by 80 megawatts, which caused rotating brownouts in the grid.
Enough
Natera said that after the morning power interruption, they feared for Veco’s afternoon peak hours of 6 to 7 p.m.
The apprehension, however, was unfounded as there was enough power already.
Veco’s franchise area, which covers Metro Cebu, requires 310 megawatts, 60 megawatts of which are supplied by independent power producer Cebu Private Power Corp.
Lowell Belciña, Cebeco coordinating manager for engineering, said Cebeco 1 and 2 get their power solely from the National Power Corp. (Napocor), through Transco.
He said Cebeco 1 supplies Carcar City to Barili town in the south, and gets at least 10 megawatts on off-peak hours and 24 megawatts during the peak hours in the afternoon.
Cebeco 2 caters to customers in Compostela town to Tuburan town and the cities of Bogo and Danao in the north.
Cebeco 2’s off-peak hours require 13 megawatts while peak hours need 26 megawatts.
Belciña said that with Transco’s transmission line woes and the Napocor’s problem with CTTP 2 yesterday, brownouts happened from 8:30 a.m. to around 1 p.m. and 1:20 p.m. to around 4:40 p.m. (RHM)
