Expect Blackouts in the Metro

MANILA, Philippines - As the country struggles to rise from the devastation of storms “Ondoy” and “Pepeng,” Metro Manila and Rizal province are facing long power outages after a fire forced the shutdown of a power transformer in Taytay last Wednesday.


The rotating blackouts that the Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) had hoped to end today are expected to drag on after three of its substations tripped “due to critical loading and in its attempt to shift load” to compensate for the shutdown of the Dolores substation of the National Grid Corp. of the Philipines (NGCP).

Meralco said the development “will result in longer duration of power outages in affected areas.”
Meralco, in a statement, said the three substations that conked out were Mandaluyong, Hillcrest and SM-Shangri-La.


“Both the NGCP and Meralco are doing everything to restore normal state of power,” the Meralco statement read. “

We beg your indulgence for this inconvenience.”


Eleven cities and towns in eastern Metro Manila and Rizal province were subjected to rotating blackouts yesterday. Meralco had targeted to restore normal power today but its substations tripped.


The blackouts yesterday lasted three to four hours each twice a day in Makati, Marikina, Mandaluyong, Pasig, San Juan and parts of Quezon City, and Binangonan, Taytay, Angono, Cainta, and Antipolo City in Rizal. Marikina, Pasig and adjacent areas have been experiencing blackouts in the past two weeks due to floods left by tropical storm Ondoy.
In a statement, NGCP said at 8:48 p.m. Wednesday, one of four 300-megavolt ampere (MVA) transformers caught fire, triggering the tripping of the other transformers and five 115-kilovolt lines of Meralco. The fire was contained at around 10:30 p.m. NGCP senior vice president Jesusito Sulit told reporters they would need to spend about P300 million to replace the transformer and another P1 million to replace the cables.

The NGCP said it will repair the damaged equipment and conduct requisite system tests before at least one transformer can be restored. The other transformers available at the Taytay substation were also cut off from the system because the fire had damaged their control cables.


MRT down

The power outage halted the operation of the EDSA-bound Metro Rail Transit (MRT) for more than an hour beginning at 2:15 p.m. Reynaldo Berroya, MRT general manager, said the lack of power supply in the Ortigas and Santolan stations caused the service interruption.

Berroya said there is enough back-up power in the trains to ensure that they stop only at stations.
The Light Rail Transit Authority (LRTA), for its part, said the power outage did not interrupt LRT lines 1 and 2.

“There was no stoppage of operations at both Line 1 and Line 2. We only had a slowdown in Line 2 but this was negligible. We run normally and smoothly at both lines,” Melquiades Robles, LRTA administrator, said.

Working in darkness

Marikina Mayor Marides Fernando said the rotating brownouts have affected rescue, repair and rehabilitation efforts in the city. She called on Meralco to speed up repairs of the NGCP plant in Taytay, noting that Barangays Nangka, Sto. Nino, Malanday and Industrial Valley have had no electricity “for 10 days now.”
“All we can do is explain to them to accept their fate and move on,” Fernando said.

Cainta Mayor Mon Ilagan said they had to make do with candles at the municipal hall. “We have to take care of our evacuees and the absence of electricity is hurting our relief operation,” he said.
Metro police chief Director Roberto Rosales ordered maximum deployment of uniformed policemen in the streets of eastern Metro Manila to prevent looting. Rosales ordered that all individuals loitering the streets, especially during the wee hours of the morning, should be accosted and questioned.

Energy Secretary Angelo Reyes, for his part, ordered the immediate restoration of power in Pasig, Cainta, Marikina, and San Juan. Reyes said the NGCP has responded to the directive by directly coordinating with Meralco for the immediate restoration of electricity in the affected areas.

“I am confident that Meralco and NGCP will be able to re-establish connection of power in the areas and this should be done immediately. Restoring power will restore balance in those areas,” Reyes said.

For the past months since assuming operations and management of the National Transmission Corp. (TransCo) in January, NGCP has been implementing numerous repair, upgrade and modernization of TransCo’s equipment and facilities.

Most of the assets assumed by NGCP were supposed to last for 30 years, but they have reportedly been deteriorating or have already bogged down. NGCP is the vehicle used by the consortium composed of State Grid Corp. of China (SGCC), Monte Oro Grid Resources Corp., and Calaca High Power Corp., which won the bidding for a 25-year lease agreement for TransCo.

Applying its world-class expertise in transmission management, SGCC is aiming to make the NGCP the No.1 transmission firm in Southeast Asia. In 2008, SGCC, China’s leading power transmission and distribution company, recorded sales revenues of $160 billion or a 15.2 percent increase from 2007 figures.

It ranked 24th in the 2008 Fortune’s Global 500. With total assets of $240 billion and 1.5 million employees, SGCC serves over one billion people and has 145 million customers. In 2010, SGCC sees all the households in its franchise areas in China energized.

Aside from the Philippines, SGCC has overseas operations in other parts of Asia, Africa and Europe.

NGCP president Walter Brown earlier said they intended to allocate P10 billion in capital expenditure under its Transmission Development Plan. – With Rainier Allan Ronda - By Donnabelle Gatdula and Non Alquitran (Philstar News Service, www.philstar.com)