(Eagle News)–The Department of Energy on Friday, Jan. 5, vowed to hold the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines liable for the prolonged power interruption affecting Panay Island.
According to Energy Secretary Raphael Lotilla, the island-wide blackout reported on Jan. 2 was, after all, “preventable.”
“As the Independent Electricity Market Operator of the Philippines has pointed out, there was a two-hour window when the (NGCP) could have proactively called on the distribution utilities and electric cooperatives in Panay to reduce their load in order to prevent an island-wide subsystem-wide collapse,” he said.
According to the DOE chief, this was the second time in less than a year that Panay Island and initially parts of Negros Occidental experienced prolonged power interruptions.
The first incident was reported in April 2023.
“From the time that a generator had an unscheduled breakdown past noon of January 2, NGCP did not do anything as the systems operator responsible for maintaining the stability and integrity of the transmission grid for the next two hours,” he said.
He said the loss of supply covering more than 15 percent of the power generated from Panay Island should have prompted the NGCP to call for a manual load reduction.
The previous incident in April 2023 last year, he said, “should have served as a lesson to take extraordinary precautions due to the fragility of the grid.”
“We will exert all efforts to exact full accountability for any failures in the delivery of the services expected from NGCP as the transmission concessionaire and the country’s biggest monopoly in the energy sector,” he said.
Apart from exacting accountability, he said the DOE was also committed to ensuring the completion of important projects such as the Panay-Negros-Cebu backbone project, and the Mindanao-Visayas Interconnection Project.
According to the agency, the first project is set to be completed in March 2024, after being moved six times from its original target of December 2020.
The Mindanao-Visayas Interconnection Project, meanwhile, is set for completion on January 25.
The initial target date for its completion was December 2020.
In a statement following the recent blackout, the NGCP called for better energy resource planning in the archipelago to “ensure sufficient generation per island with a well-balanced mix of fuels and technology.”
It said the unscheduled maintenance shutdowns of the largest power plants on the island were primarily to blame for the power interruption.
