NEA sends team to probe Palawan power outages

State-run National Electrification Administration (NEA) is deploying a technical team to Palawan to investigate the spate of prolonged power outages that have plagued the province since the start of 2017.

NEA administrator Edgardo Masongsong said the technical team will meet with Palawan Electric Cooperative (Paleco) executives as well as other local government officials.

“There is already a scheduled travel of our technical people to conduct system analysis on the transmission. But as regards distribution, while we recommended for ancillary power plant and operating reserve, I have instructed Engr. Nikki (Tortola) to also conduct analysis on the capacities available and how we will fast track the provision of (the same),” he said.

Tortola, NEA’s deputy administrator for technical services, said the problem in Palawan is a combination of generation, transmission and distribution issues. Paleco attributed it to dense vegetation and other unknown causes.

Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian, who heads the Senate committee on energy, earlier directed the state-owned corporation regulating electric cooperatives nationwide to probe massive blackouts in Palawan following a slew of complaints from its customers that reached the Senate.

The NEA responded by issuing show cause orders against Paleco and the Oriental Mindoro Electric Cooperative, which is also facing similar charges of gross neglect of duty to their member consumers, last Aug. 15.

But in another meeting with stakeholders, Gatchalian said it must consider taking legal courses of action versus energy generation companies (gencos) that would be found guilty of shortchanging the Paleco in their power supply agreements.