Metro Manila to have full power supply on July 18 — Petilla

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MANILA — Amidst the damaged transmission and distribution lines brought by Typhoon Glenda, the National Capital Region (NCR) may recover its full power supply on Friday, according to Department of Energy (DOE) Secretary Carlos Jericho Petilla.

”Manila will be a hundred percent tomorrow, it’s about a hundred percent. There may be isolated areas that will be longer. But for the most part, Meralco can confirm that it’s about a hundred percent,” he said.

Petilla also stressed that three things are required to successfully pass of the power to its household customers, the generation, transmission and distribution lines. Thus, the transfer of power may be delayed even if supply is available.

He also assured that the NGCP and Meralco are working swiftly to restore the power lines, since the two group’s profit comes from the consumption of the utility.

For his part, Manila Electric Company (Meralco) Senior Vice President (SVP) for Head Customer Retail Services, Corporate Marketing and Communication, Al Panlilio has pointed out that 82 percent of its customers in NCR, as of 7:00 am Thursday, has been energized, while 18 percent of the NCR franchise are still without power.

Panlilio added that the figure changes every hour, as the distribution utility has activated 1,000 vehicles to repair the damaged lines. The Ayala-Alabang area was also specified to only have a restored area of 5 percent.

The distribution company added that its branches are also assisting in the restoration efforts, with engineers surveying the areas. Its distribution lines are targeted to be completely functional on July 18 for the entire Metro Manila area.

At 9:00 a.m. Thursday, a 2,879 Megawatts (MWs) demand was noted by Meralco, pertaining solely to its customers, while the NGCP has said that Luzon’s supply for Thursday is at 4,244 MWs. The National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP), further, has computed that the power supply was short of 100 MWs.

Consequently, Meralco was ordered by NGCP to implement a manual low dropping/brownouts on their franchise areas, causing a two-three hour rotational brownout to be implemented starting at 8:00 am Thursday.

The distribution company noted that the occurrence of brownouts in the NCR will halt on Thursday afternoon, but is still dependent on the power plants’ condition in the upcoming days.

”The source of generation supply is also critical, once the distribution lines are up, what is critical is also the generation plants will be able to deliver power,” said Panlilio.

Previously, Meralco has estimated that 60 percent of NCR will come back on Wednesday night after the 5-6 pm re-energization of the NGCP.

It was delayed by two-three hours.

The Meralco SVP assured that 96 percent of the whole Meralco franchise area will be back online on Friday, if the generation plants are successfully up and running.

Six plants are expected to have a normal production on Friday, while Sta.Rosa and 1,200 MW Sta.Rita are projected to be contributing power to the grid later Saturday, after the flooding in the areas subside.

The plants were forced to cut off the power on Wednesday, due to the strong winds of typhoon “Glenda.”

The NGCP also pointed out that there is more to be done, even if the main 530 kV lines are energized, since the minimum 69 kV lines transfers the power to the households.

Meanwhile, Meralco, despite still having no figures, said that damage of the typhoon to their facilities is minimal.