DAVAO CITY, Philippines — The Aboitiz-owned Davao Light and Power Company (DLPC) announced on Tuesday afternoon that the entire city will experience 5 hours of power interruption starting Wednesday (Apr. 13).
“Starting (Wednesday), we will be implementing a new scheme to equitably ration available power to the customers within our franchise,” the DLPC said in its latest bulletin on Tuesday.
DLPC said the additional hours in the rotating brownout was caused by the worsening power supply deficit.
“Currently, based on the available power supply allocated to Davao Light by generating plants, the deficit has now increased to an average of 100 MW. Hence, the duration (of the brownout) has increased from a maximum of two hours to a maximum of five hours,” the DLPC said.
For every 20-MW deficit, there will be a maximum of one-hour power interruption, according to the DLPC.
“The maximum duration of the rotating power outages will be divided into two schedules. Four hours during the peak period (8 a.m. to 8 p.m.) and one hour during the off-peak period (7 a.m. to 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. to 12 MN),” DLPC posted.
Even before the 5-hour daily brownout was announced, residents have complained about power outages as long as four hours a day since April 6.
The company earlier explained that the 4-hour power interruption last April 6 was due to the emergency shutdown of one of the two units of the Aboitiz-owned coal-fired power plant in Davao City.
DLPC said that the worsening power interruption has been due to natural and mechanical issues.
“The reasons are the worsening effect of the El Niño Phenomenon on the major hydro power plants in Mindanao, the recent emergency outage of two Agus plants and the shutdown of one of the units of the Therma South Inc. coal-fired power plant last April 6,” DLPC said.
DLPC, however, said that the the power situation would improve if the coal-fired power plant in Davao City went back online.
“Power supply is projected to improve on April 21 once the said unit of the TSI, which is currently offline, is back online as scheduled,” DLPC said. SFM