CENECO explains brownouts; apologizes to consumers
Central Negros Electric Cooperative, Inc. (CENECO) conveys its profound apologies to its electricity consumers for the occurrence of extended rotating brownouts since April 4, 2010 due to insufficient power supply from Green Core Geothermal Incorporated (GCGI).
Mr. Fernando De Rivera of GCGI issued an official statement through an email regarding the cause of the said power interruptions. To quote Mr. Rivera: “Green Core Geothermal Inc. (GCGI) shut down Unit 3 of Palinpinon 1 geothermal plant last March 27 for its regular preventive maintenance. The PMS will last until April 26, 2010. Normally, Luzon provides power to the Visayas of up to 200 MW during peak hours. However, since Luzon is also suffering from power shortage, this has not been followed.
As a prudent industry practice, all power plants undergo PMS to avoid total plant damage and to ensure that they can be operated for longer periods. It is part and parcel of our operations. The PMS was also conducted to ensure that there’s enough power in May for the elections.
The advice on whether there is a need to interrupt certain areas will come from the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP), the company which serves as “traffic control center” for power coming from the power suppliers and the need for power by the customers. Manual Load Dropping (MLD) is normally done by the NGCP as the system operator during low capacity periods to ensure grid stability and security.”
The CENECO Management would like to emphasize that, as an electricity distribution utility company, CENECO is fully dependent from the National Power Corporation (NPC) and Independent Power Producers (IPPs) like GCGI for its power source. Once this steady energy supply volume averaging 51 megawatts per month is not available entirely or in part at any given time, CENECO will have nothing or less volume of power to distribute. The two situations call for specific courses of action and have different causal effects to electricity consumers. No or zero supply leads to total blackout in the entire distribution system! On one hand, a reduced or curtailed supply leads to power rationing or rotating brownouts. The duration greatly depends on the volume that is not available at any given time.
Electricity consumers can help reduce the frequency of rotating brownouts by conserving energy.
