CEBU, Philippines - The Visayas is expected to experience a power shortage of up to 200 megawatts tomorrow following the shutdown of a 120-megawatt power plant in Leyte due to a scheduled preventive maintenance.
National Grid Corporation of the Philippines Corporate Communications Officer for the Visayas Belinda Canlas said in a power advisory that starting yesterday, Mahanagdong geothermal power plant in Leyte will undertake preventive maintenance schedule for 10 days.
“As a result of the 10-day shutdown, the Visayas grid’s power supply will decrease with the scheduled maintenance of other major power plants in Cebu,” Canlas said.
She added that the impact of the shortage will be felt Visayas-wide tomorrow “as it will be distributed among the major islands and cities”.
As of yesterday, the available capacity of the Visayas is 975 megawatts with peak load reaching up to 1,072 megawatts resulting to 97 megawatt-shortfall according to the daily power bulletin of NGCP.
Yesterday, only Visayas has experienced a shortfall while Luzon and Mindanao were able to maintain a positive gross reserve. Luzon had an available capacity of 6,518 megawatts and a peak load of 5,707 megawatts leaving a reserve of 811 megawatts. Mindanao, on the other hand, had an available capacity of 1,233 megawatts and a peak load of only 1,122 megawatts.
Ethel Natera, corporate communications officer of the Visayan Electric Company said that they cannot forecast yet if there will be an interruption or not by Monday.
“We only depend on the power available at the grid at a specific time and we implement actions based on real-time data. There is no way to forecast which areas we will interrupt,” Natera said.
Veco is the major distributor of power in the Visayas and is serving most of Metro Cebu.
She said that at any time, they have a measure in place in cases like power shortage. One of which is the one-hour rotation scheme where in power distribution in a specific group of areas is interrupted for one hour and restored afterwards before Veco will interrupt another area.
Natera said due to lack of reserve, Veco has been interrupting power distribution by almost everyday strategically in different areas.
Veco however is trying to minimize the interruptions by encouraging major consumers to join the interruptible program where in consumer voluntarily sheds load. Natera said that Veco was able to enjoin around 20 major consumers who are contributing about 20 to 30 megawatts everyday.
“So mohangyo na lang gyud mi sa public for wise use of electricity since we are experiencing a shortage,” said Natera.
Source: The Freeman
