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ZAMBOANGA CITY (MindaNews / 8 April) – The National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) said that the Easter Sunday Mindanao-wide blackout was traced to a technical problem at the NGCP’s Agus switchyard in Iligan City.
“A conductor at the Capacitor Voltage Transformer (CVT) of Agus 6 to Agus 7 138-Kilovolt (KV) tie line was detached and touched the grounded part of the CVT,” said Elizabeth Ladaga, NGCP regional corporate public affairs officer.
The Mindanao-wide power outage on Easter Sunday started at 1 a.m. affecting most of Mindanao’s 27 provinces and 33 cities.
The NGCP restored power transmission services to all customers here in Mindanao around 7:50 a.m. of the same day, but took them a few days to trace the cause and make a statement about it.
The Easter Sunday morning blackout came 13 months after the February 27, 2014 island-wide power outage from 3:52 a.m. with the Mindanao Grid fully re-energized by 12:18 noon on the same day. (MindaNews)
But in last year’s outage, it took authorities even longer – 15 days – to explain what happened.