Marcos orders NGCP to resolve Western Visayas power crisis
President Marcos has ordered the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP) to “immediately address the power crisis” in Western Visayas following the massive power blackouts in the region last week.
In a statement on Tuesday, the Presidential Communications Office (PCO) said the President ordered the NGCP “to synchronize the protection relays of transmission, generation and distribution” in the next two weeks to prevent massive blackouts.
Mr. Marcos also ordered the NGCP to finish the third stage of the Cebu-Negros-Panay backbone project (CNP3), which is seen to distribute energy supply more efficiently in the region.
The CNP3 will link the islands of Negros and Cebu through overhead lines from Bacolod City to San Carlos City in Negros Occidental and via submarine cable from San Carlos to Toledo City in southwestern Cebu.
The President also instructed the NGCP to review the reliability of each Visayas subgrid and fast-track the signing of the Ancillary Service Procurement Agreement with the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) to manage power fluctuations, the PCO added.
According to the PCO, the NGCP was told “to be transparent” and regularly appraise local officials, distribution utilities, power generators, the Department of Energy and the ERC on the status of the Visayas grid.
Battery farms
The interconnected island grids of Cebu, Negros, Panay, Leyte, Samar and Bohol are all part of the Visayas grid.
The blackouts in Western Visayas happened as Occidental Mindoro also suffered weeks of power outages, reaching up to 20 hours a day.
The power outages in Occidental Mindoro ended on April 28 after the owner of three power plants in the province resumed full operation despite facing potential financial losses.
In April this year, the President said the government may not have to build big power generators like the $2.3-billion Bataan Nuclear Power Plant as his administration was instead considering large energy storage facilities as alternatives to address perennial power shortages in the country.
“We no longer need to construct all of those facilities. We no longer need to put in that kind of infrastructure. All we need now are these battery farms that we are seeing today,” he said during the inauguration of the 1,000-megawatt nationwide battery energy storage system network of San Miguel Global Power in Limay, Bataan. INQ
