Monday, December 7, 2015

Davao coal plant back online, lessens brownouts



DAVAO CITY, Dec. 7, 2015- Brownouts will likely continue but with lesser duration of hours as Therma South Incorporated coal-fired plant went back online at around 12:16 am today (December 7.)

According to Ross Luga, Davao Light and Power Company (DLPC) corporate communications officer they were expecting that with the coal plant’s return brownouts would cease.

However as of 9:30 am this morning (Dec. 7) the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) has imposed a 100 megawatt Mindanao-wide deficiency  affecting all distribution utilities in the island including DLPC.

The deficiency is due to the emergency shutdown of one of the units of the Agus Hydropower Plant  and the derated capacity of Agus and Pulangi hydropower plants.

From a 207 megawatt out of the 273 MW contracted supply the power supply to DLPC has been reduced to 176 MW.

This deficiency translates to another round of rotating brownouts with a maximum duration of 1.5 hours in the DLPC franchise. This is significantly lesser than the 3-hour rotating brownouts implemented last week.

For schedule of the power interruptions, the DLPC is asking the customers to contact the DLPC call center 229-3572 or on its website www.davaolight.com

Luga said they are optimizing other sources of power like the TSI coal plant and the Hedcor hydropower plants in Sibulan and Talomo, the Bajada power plant to mitigate the curtailment. Another mitigation measure is its interruptible load program (ILP) where large companies such as malls, factories and agricultural industries are deloading power by using their own generators during peak hours.

The ILP has contributed about 10 megawatt of power to the grid benefiting many small consumers. One megawatt would spare about 4,000 households from power interruptions. (PIA/RG Alama)

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