Lack of power supply triggers outages in Panay and Negros

Massive power outages hit the islands of Panay and Negros on Tuesday, October 5, 2021.

The outage started 5:24 a.m. after several power plants in Negros Oriental and Iloilo suddenly tripped off, according to the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP).

The tripping of the power plants resulted in the supply shortage in Negros and Panay and eventually affected all three units of Panay Energy Development Corp (PEDC), which is the subsidiary of Global Business Power (GBP).

Manual load dropping and protection systems were activated.

“Due to the high vibration of the cooling water and the domino effect of the power plants trip-off from Negros and PCPC, the Power plant was automatically shut down and the protection system was activated,” according to GBP Panay Site operations head Petronilo R. Madrid.

The simultaneous trip off resulted in total power outages in the franchise areas of Iloilo I Electric Cooperative, Inc. (ILECO I), ILECO II, ILECO III, Antique Electric Cooperative (ANTECO), Capiz Electric Cooperative, Inc. (CAPELCO) MORE Electric and Power Corp. (MORE Power); and Guimaras Electric Cooperative, Inc. (GUIMELCO).

Electric cooperatives in Negros Oriental and Negros Occidental were also affected by the outages.

According to Michelle Visera spokesperson of NGCP, the reason for the power plant shutdowns is still under investigation.

“Nagkulang ang suplay sang kuryente, kinahanglan naton ibanan, nag-drop ang aton load that is why may power interruptions pero indi pa kita kahambal kon ano ang rason gid, under investigation pa,” Visera said in a radio interview on Tuesday.

In Iloilo City, MORE Power reported that power was restored in all affected feeders by 1:57 p.m. except for Megaworld and SM City areas in Mandurriao district. (ERS)