CALAPAN CITY—Rotational brownouts worsened across Oriental Mindoro on Friday after the province’s power supply deficit widened to 18.65 megawatts (MW), prompting additional manual load dropping.
According to the Oriental Mindoro Electric Cooperative Inc. (Ormeco), the latest dispatch report from the National Transmission Corp.reflected worsening supply shortages affecting multiple feeders across the province.
READ: Oriental Mindoro braces for brownouts amid supply deficit
Among those affected was Emily Catapang, a Calapan resident and nongovernmental organization worker, who lamented the repeated power interruptions affecting both work and home life.
“Our work is very affected. On Friday, we had a brownout from 8 a.m. to 11 a.m. Then at 2:40 p.m., the power went out again here in the office, and until now there’s still no electricity,” Catapang told the Inquirer.
She added: “I have an 87-year-old mother at home. It’s so sad when there’s a brownout.”
Ormeco attributed the limited power supply to several factors, including low water levels affecting hydroelectric facilities such as the Linao Cawayan Mini-Hydro Power Plant, Inabasan Mini-Hydro Power Plant, and Catuiran Hydro Power Plant.
The cooperative also cited emergency shutdowns and technical issues involving several power plants, including Greenforce Roxas due to a burnt cable and EPP SPC Roxas because of voltage constraints. Other facilities were also placed under corrective maintenance status.
Emergecy shutdowns
Additional supply disruptions were caused by fuel shortages affecting EPP Regulus PG and EPP Topteam Bongabong, the advisory added.
As a result of the worsening power situation, about 22.700 MW of unserved feeders were affected, leading to manual load dropping or rotational power interruptions in several parts of Oriental Mindoro.
Engineer Boy Davalos, meanwhile, blamed the recurring outages on what he described as regulatory and operational failures.
“The root cause of the massive power outage is generally the failure of the ERC to exercise its regulatory power starting in 2023. This is amid the questionable conduct of Ormeco officials in the implementation of Emergency Power Supply Agreements (Epsas) and the 57-MW of the Competitive Selection Process, which is deemed another failure,” Davalos said.
He added: “In the end, the power shortage came from the lack of backup power, which mostly came from those unsubsidized Epsas during this time of seasonal lack of renewable energy.” INQ