Rotating brownouts scheduled in Davao Light service areas

DAVAO CITY – The Davao Light and Power Company (DLPC) the other day announced that rotating two to threehour electric power supply interruptions will be experienced in its service areas .

“For the past weeks, Davao Light was able to avoid the implementation of the rotating power interruptions despite the continued Mindanao-wide grid deficiency due to the El Niño and the bombings of transmission lines,” DLPC said.

DLPC said that the Therma South Inc. (TSI) announced on Tuesday February 16 that one of the units with a capacity of 150MW, will undergo a 10-day preven- tive maintenance shutdown starting February 16 until February 26.

“Unavoidably, with this situation, Davao Light will only have a total of 275 MW of available power to supply the customers' average demand of 345 MW in a day. The deficiency will now translate to two to three hours of rotating power interruptions,” the DLPC announcement added.

It added that the exact time of the power interruption cannot be determined as the power supply allocation varies every hour and the number of feeders as well to be interrupted depends on the supply deficit on a certain hour in a day.

The company said it will continue to optimize its supply contracts with other generating plants, including Therma Marine Inc. for 30 MW; Unit 1 of TSI coal-fired power plant for 50 MW; Hedcor Sibulan for 38 MW; Hedcor Talomo for 3 MW; and the Western Mindanao Power Corporation for 15 MW.

The Bajada Power Plant will continue to run and the Interruptible Load Program will still be activated to help mitigate the impact of the very tight power supply situation, DLPC assured its consumers. (Alexander D. Lopez)