ENERGY Assistant Secretary Mario Marasigan admitted that the problem of a thin power supply may persist until tomorrow, even as the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) announced an extension of the red and yellow alert in the Luzon and Visayas Grid.
In an interview with the government station PTV 4’s Ulat Bayan, Marasigan said that they are not ruling out the possibility of having a continued thin supply of power on Wednesday.
“There is a possibility that such can happen,” Marasigan said when asked about such a possibility.
Extended alerts
Meanwhile, the NGCP announced that they extended the red and yellow alert for Luzon and Visayas due to the continued thin supply.
For the Luzon grid, the NGCP said they extended the red alert until 9 p.m.
The Visayas grid will be at 9 p.m. to 11 p.m. on yellow alert
“Red alert status is raised in the Visayas grid due to the outage of an additional plant, KSPC 1 at 103MW.,” they said.
“Manual load dropping or rotational power interruptions may be implemented to protect the integrity of the power system. A red alert status is issued when power supply is insufficient to meet consumer demand and the transmission grid’s regulating requirement,” they added.
Meralco says minimal brownouts recorded
Meanwhile, despite the declaration of a red alert in the Luzon grid from 2:00PM to 4:00PM today, April 16, Meralco said that they did not resort to any manual load dropping (MLD) or rotating power interruptions.
This is partly due to the help of our big-load customers, which collectively de-loaded around 300 MW under the interruptible load program (ILP).
“We thank our partners in the private sector in embodying the spirit of bayanihan and malasakit through the ILP, which has been beneficial in ensuring continuity of electricity service particularly when supply is tight. We continue to monitor the situation and provide updates as needed, they said.
But according to the latest Meralco statement, as the NGCP extended the Red Alert status on the Luzon Grid they implemented at 4:14 p.m. an emergency manual load dropping (MLD) affecting around 50,000 customers in portions of Batangas, Bulacan, Cavite and Laguna. All services were fully restored by 5:58PM.
“To lessen the strain on the power grid, Meralco’s customers under the Interruptible Load Program (ILP) extended their commitment to de-load a collective capacity of more than 300 MW until 9PM. With the Luzon Grid still on Red Alert, we are ready to implement MLD or rotating power interruptions should there be a need as part of our responsibility to manage the system,” they said.
