Davide: There is Enough Power Supply in Cebu

Governor Hilario P. Davide III assured the Cebuanos that there will be sufficient supply of power in Cebu.

This was backed up by the power sector officials following a meeting last February 23 at the Capitol.

“We are an interconnected grid so we have enough supply,” said Abner Bardoquillo, Network System Operation Division head of the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP).

Bardoquillo said the Cebu transmission lines are also connected with other parts of the Visayas and even Luzon. The Visayas grid can either collect from or send available excess power to the Luzon grid.

The officials also projected that there will be no outages due to power supply shortage in the summer. However, the current contingency power reserve is only 40 to 80 megawatts (MW), which indicates a yellow alert level.

NGCP said the power plants are asked not to hold preventive maintenance in the months of April and May.

Davide met the power stakeholders in the region following a power outage that was felt at the dawn of February 19.

The eight-hour power blackout was also experienced in the other provinces in the Visayas: Samar, Leyte, and Bohol.

The energy officials claimed the power outage does point to any power shortfall in the Visayas grid.

Department of Energy (DOE) 7 Director Antonio Labios said the blackout was caused by an instrument transformer explosion in the Naga City substation of Cebu Diesel Power Plant 1.

The incident disconnected the power supply of Korean Electric Company SPC Power Corporation (KSPC) in Naga City and Cebu Energy Development Corporation (CEDC) in Toledo City to the grid.

NGCP said they are now investigating the cause of the explosion. Bardoquillo said they already have short-term and long-term plans to avoid recurrence of the low voltage.

Roger Lim, president of East Asia Utilities Corporation, said the problem in the Naga substation should never have cascaded into the other NGCP transmission lines. The lines also connect Cebu to Leyte, thus the power
outage was also experienced in the area.

Davide was also concerned if Cebu has enough power approaching summer since it is when the demand normally rises.

Labios said they are expecting to increase the grid’s power reserve by 264 MW from the plants of Kepco, CEDC, and Philippine Energy Development Corporation in Panay.

Kepco’s 100 MW unit has been undergoing preventive maintenance.

“Barring any major power plant nga maguba (that has malfunctioned) and the operation is normal, naa man ta gihapoy maigo nga (we have enough) supply,” said Labios.

www.cebu.gov.ph