MANILA, Philippines -- Power distributor Manila Electric Co. began on Thursday implementing rotating brownouts within its franchise area in Metro Manila after the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines had shut down a transformer in the Dolores substation in Taytay, Rizal.
According to the NGCP, operator of the country's electricity superhighway, the power outages will last a maximum of three hours, twice a day, in the affected areas, which would include parts of Pasig, Cainta, Marikina, and San Juan.
In a separate phone interview, Meralco external communications manager Joe Zaldarriaga added that these brownouts would last until the replacement of the NGCP transformers.
Electricity in portions of Pasig, Cainta, Marikina, San Juan and Quezon City, was cut off Wednesday night, as one of the four 300-MVA transformers in the Dolores substation caught fire. This triggered the tripping of the other transformers and the 115-kiloVolt lines of the Meralco sub-sector areas.
The fire was contained at around 10:30 p.m. Wednesday night.
NGCP said it would repair the damaged equipment and conduct the requisite system test before at least one transformer unit could be restored. The other transformer units available at the substation have also been cut off from the system because its control cables have been affected by the fire.
As of 9:30 a.m. Thursday, 180 megawatts of power load have already been dropped from the Luzon grid due to the fire.
According to NGCP, Meralco has been shifting the load of the Dolores substation to Zapote, Balintawak, and Araneta substations as restoration work is ongoing in Dolores.
The consortium operating the country's transmission system is directly coordinating with Meralco to immediately restore electricity in parts of Pasig, Cainta, Marikina, San Juan and Quezon City.
Five 115-kiloVolt lines of Meralco draw power from the Dolores substation.
In particular, the Dolores delivery point supplies power to nine sub-stations of Meralco, which covers Marikina, Mandaluyong, Pasig, parts of Quezon City and San Juan in Metro Manila; and in Antipolo, Binangonan, Cainta, and Taytay in Rizal.
