Rotating brownouts hit Cebu, Negros

CEBU CITY—Rotational brownouts lasting from 30 minutes to two hours have hit Cebu and Negros islands following the temporary shutdown of a 200-megawatt coal-fired power plant in Naga City, Cebu province, which was damaged by a fire.

The power disruption started on Monday, two days after the fire damaged the transfer tower at the crusher building of Korean Electric Co. (Kepco). The tower is where the coal passes through a conveyor belt to the generation units.

Kepco first fed all coal reserves to its plants before shutting down operations on Saturday. Its first plant unit went offline at 5 p.m. and the other, at 10 p.m.

The power supply was not affected by the shutdown during the weekend because demand on Saturday and Sunday was not high. By Monday, there was not enough power supply from the Visayas grid.

According to National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP), power supply was short by

231 MW from the Visayas grid as of 6 p.m. on Monday. As of 1 p.m. on June 2, total power capacity of the grid reached 1,329 MW while peak demand reached 1,585 MW, or a deficit of 256 MW, based on NGCP data.

Jose Rey Maleza, field supervisor of the Department of Energy in the Visayas, said the rotational brownouts would continue until power supply in the grid normalizes.

In a statement, Kepco said the 100-MW Kepco Unit 1 was tentatively set to go online on June 6. But the 100-MW Kepco Unit 2 would be online on June 22 yet due to preventive maintenance.

Maleza said Negros Oriental province and Bacolod City in Negros Occidental province might also experience rotational brownouts since its distributing utility had a direct contract with Kepco.

Even before the shutdown of Kepco, grid supply already dropped due to the shutdown of one of two 82-MW coal-fired power generators of Cebu Energy Development Corp. (CEDC) in Toledo City. One unit of CEDC suffered a leak in its boiler tubes, according to Maleza.

Supply from geothermal plants in Leyte also dropped after the plants experienced problems.

The actual deficit and rotational brownouts have been reduced by supply coming from the Luzon grid. With a report from Nestor P. Burgos Jr., Inquirer Visayas