DOE: Luzon power supply partial restoration on Saturday

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Power in the Luzon grid will be partially restored the earliest on Saturday (July 19th) and the latest on Tuesday, next week.
Energy Secretary Jericho Petilla pointed out that power restoration is also dependent on the repair of the 69 kilovolt (kV) lines, which may be fixed in two weeks time. It is the smallest kV line that is used for transmitting power to the households.

The secretary said that power restoration is also reliant on the distribution capacity of electric cooperatives.

For July 18, the Batangas area will have a restored power of about 50-91 percent while the Catandanues province will have power utilization of 10-50 percent.

Also, the Quezon province is still powerless on the eve of July 17.

The area was isolated from the grid and had not been able to respond on the scope of the damaged power facilities. Helicopters had flown to the area on Thursday, after the storm officially left the country, to get word on the damage assessment.

Petilla also said that the distribution lines connecting the northern parts of Luzon including Bulacan, Zambales and Pampanga have improved as of 9 am on July 17, with the two latter areas having received their full power capacity.

The NGCP stated that the Luzon grid is out of 55 percent supply capacity, alleviating the supply problem through 2-3 hour rotational brownouts on July 17; to utilize power sharing from area to area.

On Thursday, the northern grid had an available capacity of 4,244 Megawatts (MWt) with a consumption demand of 4,760 MW, having a 500 MW deficiency.

The Southern Luzon region’s power supply, comprising Sorsogon, Camarines Sur, Camarines Norte, Catanduanes and Albay, might be back on July 19, with the re-energization of the 230 kV lines (main lines). The Saturday projection is also dependent on the return of the 69 kV lines.

The DOE secretary also said that power supply is critical but the situation is expected to improve on the event that the six to seven unavailable power plants come in.

”The source of generation supply is also critical, once the distribution lines are up, what is also critical are the generation plants able to deliver power,” he said.

Specifically, 99.8 percent of Quezon is still without power, while the Batangas area is about 94 percent powerless.

The power interrupted customers in Cavite are estimated at 67 percent and 61 percent for the Laguna electrical grid.

Also, Bulacan is noted to have a smaller 11 percent supply cut due to the effect of typhoon “Glenda.”

Petilla stated earlier that the badly hit areas are those located in the Southern Luzon grid.

NGCP’s 1,500 poles were removed by Typhoon Glenda’s strength and are expected to be fixed in two weeks time.

Meanwhile, the Manila Electric Company (Meralco), whose franchise area includes Laguna, Cavite, Rizal and the National Capital Region (NCR), has said that the single assurance they can give is that Meralco’s crew are working around the clock to put back the electricity as soon as possible.

The NCR is assured of 96 percent power restoration on July 18, with four percent being the most isolated cases. (PNA report.)

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