BROWNOUT IN GAPO: NATIONAL GRID CORPORATION OF THE PHILIPPINES (NGCP) EXPLAINS

Mayor James Gordon, Jr. and the Public Utilities Department (PUD) want Olongapo City to be spared from the “rotating brownouts” which several areas in Metro Manila are facing.

The National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) in Kale Beach Olongapo City has informed the Public Utilities Department (PUD) that the city will tentatively experience brownouts from January 25-29, 2010, 12noon to 2pm daily. According to NGCP the cause of brownouts that put Luzon grid, including Olongapo City on “yellow alert” is due to the power deficiency.

“Mabuti nang maliwanag sa ating mga consumer na hindi ang PUD ang dahilan ng brownout kungdi ang NGCP,” ani Louie Lopez, PUD general manager.

“The brownouts in Metro Manila is the result of power deficiency from the Sual generation plant which supplies power to the Manila Electric Company,” NGCP explained.

In an interview with Engr. Zavalla of PUD, he said, “the scheduled brownouts will only be tentative because it depends on the load shedding, consumers will share the burden of low power supply instead of putting the affected areas in blackout at the same time.”

NGCP deputy assistance chief technical officer Carlito Claudio was quoted as saying, “the rotating brownout was also caused by the shutdown of the 540 megawatt Limay power plant, the outage of the Calaca power plant due to boiler tube leak and the ongoing maintenance work on the Ilijan power plant. Unit 1 developed feedwater pump trouble and Unit 2 was shutdown on Jan 8 due to the lack of coal supply.”

Among the areas affected by the rotating brownouts are some parts of Metro Manila, portions of Laguna and Bulacan.

Pao/nmm