Lopez’s EDC puts another power plant on extended shutdown after quake

ENERGY Development Corp. (EDC) has added one more power plant among those on extended shutdown in the wake of the 6.5-magnitude earthquake that hit Leyte, the site of its geothermal plants.

“Based on initial assessment, the Mahanagdong Power Plant will need to be on extended outage for repair works on damage to the structures of cooling tower units and to the plant’s substation,” the Lopez-led company told the stock exchange on Tuesday.

“This is in addition to the earlier reported one unit each of both EDC’s Malitbog power plant and that of its wholly owned subsidiary Green Core Geothermal, Inc.’s ( GCGI) Tongonan Power Plant,” it added.

EDC previously said that both the Tongonan and Malitbog power plants would need to be on extended outage for repair works on damages to the structures of their respective cooling tower units.

The magnitude 6.5 earthquake occurred at 4:03 p.m. on July 6, in Jaro town of Leyte, damaging power and transmission facilities in the area and resulting in power outage in Samar, Leyte and Bohol provinces. Panay, Negros and Cebu islands experienced power interruptions but are fully restored.

After assessing the impact of the earthquake, EDC noted visible damage to a number of circuit breakers, current transformers and other ancillary switchyard equipment in its marshaling station.

The marshaling station is where the power from the Malitbog, Upper Mahiao and Mahanagdong power plants is pooled before its transmission from a single point to the islands of Leyte, Bohol, Cebu and Luzon.

In its latest advisory, EDC said the restoration of the marshaling station allowed the delivery of a total around 200 megawatts (MW) from Malitbog bottoming cycle plant, Malitbog power plant and Upper Mahiao plant.

On Monday, the Department of Energy (DoE) said majority of the areas in Region 8, or Eastern Visayas, had been supplied with electricity based on the consolidated reports from EDC, National Grid Corporation of the Philippines and other members of what it called an “energy family.”

It said the quake-hit areas in Leyte, Samar and Bohol were being supplied with 194 MW or 76% of its recent 255-MW peak electricity requirement. The power load share of the provinces are as follows: Leyte and Samar with 137.4 MW, and Bohol with 56.6 MW.

The DoE gave its assurance that “the energy family is working 24/7 to ensure that all energy facilities affected by the quake are repaired and brought back online to target the projected demand which could reach as high as 291 MW.” —