NGCP tells lawmakers: Don’t heap blame on us

THE National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) on Tuesday told lawmakers that it should not be blamed for the three-day power outage in Negros and Panay last April.

During the House Committee on Energy hearing, NGCP said that although the April 27 disturbance occurred at the Bacolod-Silay 69-kiloVolt (kV) line, which is co-owned with the Central Negros Electric Co-operative Inc. (CENECO), no fault was found along the NGCP-owned segment and its protection system functioned as intended.

Subsequently, Palm Concepcion Power Corporation (PCPC), with estimated generation load of 135MW, tripped 1.3 seconds after fault clearing.

The NGCP explained that the resulting undervoltage and underfrequency were severe and unrecoverable, directly causing the tripping of other power plants, and ultimately, the Panay subgrid collapse. The subsequent trippings that occurred last April 28 and 29 were a direct result of the avoidable events of April 27, the grid operator claimed.

Other contributing factors that made it difficult for the Panay subgrid to immediately recover from the event includes unplanned outages and deration of other plants, insufficient non-variable energy sources and unique configuration of the Negros-Panay subgrid, and the delay in completion of the Cebu-Negros-Panay 230kV Backbone project.

The company highlighted that incidents like these may be caused by many factors and not only to a single