KORONADAL CITY (MindaNews/30 September)– Power outage in parts of Soccksargen Region or Region 12 has worsened due to the toppling of a transmission line of the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP), distribution utilities said Monday.
Santiago Tudio, South Cotabato I Electric Cooperative, Inc. (Socoteco-I), said the toppling of Tower 141 DC in Barangay Kayaga, Kabacan has caused a permanent fault in the Kibawe-Sultan Kudarat 138-kilovolt line.
“This resulted in power shifting causing transmission constraints or low voltage in the grid especially during peak hours,” he said in an advisory.
Owing to this, the NGCP has implemented compliance with the Load to Maintain scheme to ensure quality of power to all electric distribution utilities and customers, Tudio said.
In the case of Socoteco-I, NGCP gave it Monday an allocation of 15-18 megawatts (MW), he said.
Socoteco-I’s daily peak demand is 33 MW. It serves this city, the seat of government of Region 12, and the towns of Tantangan, Tampakan, Banga, Surallah, Norala, Sto. Nino, Lake Sebu and T’boli and Lutayan in Sultan Kudarat.
Based on the utility’s advisory, it will implement two rotational brownouts Monday, each lasting three hours or a total of six hours, per service area.
Until late last week, outage in this city was just one hour daily.
For the Sultan Kudarat Electric Cooperative (Sukelco), it announced a total of five-hour brownout for today.
Sukelco serves 14 localities in Sultan Kudarat and Maguindanao provinces.
Both utilities, however, said that the outage schedule may change without prior notice.
Captain Tony Bulao, spokesperson of the 602st Infantry Brigade, earlier said that unidentified men planted an explosive that toppled the NGCP transmission line in Barangay Kayaga.
Aside from South Cotabato and Sultan Kudarat, Region 12 also includes North Cotabato and Sarangani.
Milfrance Capulong, NGCP communications officer for Mindanao, said in a text message that she has no immediate information when the destroyed tower would be fixed.
The Mindanao grid was placed again on a red alert status last Sept. 27 due to zero reserve.
On Monday, data from the NGCP website shows that the Mindanao grid has a deficiency of 106 MW, with peak demand pegged at 1,231 MW against the available capacity of 1,125 MW. (Bong S. Sarmiento/MindaNews)