Power supply remains sufficient on election day

MANILA – The National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) said power supply remains sufficient during the national and local elections on Monday.

As of 1 p.m., NGCP said the three grids are all in normal operation.

Compared to its outlook last Friday, power supply in the Luzon grid increased to 14,043 megawatts in the afternoon, while actual demand of 8,035 MW was lower than the forecast demand of 9,989 MW. This has left the Luzon grid with a higher spare capacity of 6,368 MW.

The same situation was observed in Visayas and Mindanao grids, in which available capacity was higher than the outlook last week while electricity usage was lower during the elections.

As of Monday afternoon, the Visayas grid has 2,836 MW capacity and a demand of 1,541 MW, leaving the grid with an operating margin of 1,295 MW.

Mindanao grid, on the other hand, has a capacity of 3,115 MW and demand of 1,238 MW, with a total spare capacity of 1,877 MW.

Meanwhile, the Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) said the power outages experienced in some areas during the election are isolated cases.

“We have so far recorded 20 outage incidents, most of which were isolated troubles. These were immediately addressed and restored accordingly,” Meralco said in a Viber message.

Affected areas of Metro Manila include Sta. Ana, Sta. Mesa, and Tondo in Manila; Valenzuela City; Batasan in Quezon City; and Talon in Las Piñas City.

In Cavite, there were brownouts in Cavite City, Naic, and Amadeo.

Batangas City also experienced power outages.

Hagonoy and San Jose del Monte in Bulacan, as well as Antipolo and Cainta in Rizal also had brownouts during the election.

Meralco said power has been fully restored in these areas at noontime.

“We would like to remind the volunteers manning the polling precincts not to bring additional appliances like electric fans and electric kettles to avoid incidents of overloading. Nonetheless, our customers can rest assured that we have contingency measures in place so that we can immediately address any emergency and trouble. We have more than 270 generator sets and more than 500 flood lights ready to be deployed,” Meralco added.