TAGBILARAN CITY, Bohol, July 9 (PNA) — Bohol managed to restore power supply within 27 hours on its own after the shutdown of the geothermal plant of the Energy Development Corp. (EDC) in Leyte, which is the main source of power supply of the province, when a magnitude 6.5 earthquake struck Leyte Thursday afternoon.
Power supply in Tagbilaran City within the service area of Bohol Light Company, Inc. (BLCI) resumed at around 7 p.m. the following day, July 7, and went on for two hours at a time in the first round rationing.
From 10 p.m., power supply in the city went on uninterrupted, except Poblacion 1 and Poblacion 2 from 9 am-1 pm the following day. Other parts of Bohol also partake through Boheco I.
Power distribution had been on rationing until 11:30 p.m. Saturday when all BLCI feeders have been energized already.
As of 11 p.m. Saturday, Bohol Electric Cooperative (BOHECO I) service areas- -Panglao, Loay, Maribojoc, and Tubigon- -started receiving power supply generated from Janopol Hydroelectric Power Plant and Sevilla Mini Hydro of Boheco I.
Bohol plunged in darkness Thursday evening after the Ormoc-Maasin 138-kv line tripped at 4:06 p.m., three minutes after the earthquake jolted the town of Kananga which is close to Jaro, Leyte where the epicenter was traced.
Part of EDC’s Tongonan Geothermal Power Plant, the “largest steam field in the world”, is in Kananga.
Bohol relies on the geothermal power plant in Leyte for its daily consumption of 60MW-76MW.
The blackout was initially estimated to stretch to at least three weeks for the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) to find alternative sources of power supply to energize its transmission lines while the Tongonan plant is down.
Alarmed on the length of time that Bohol will have to suffer from total power shutdown, Gov. Edgar Chatto, who is in Canada to attend a gathering of the Conbusac, called the members of the Bohol Energy Development Advisory Group (BEDAG) to convene right then.
During the BEDAG meeting, suspended provincial administrator Alfonso Damalerio II- -acting as volunteer from the private sector- -suggested to find a contingency measure to address the immediate need to restore power supply in Bohol.
Damalerio suggested to tap Salcon Power Corp. (SPC) for the operation of the Bohol Diesel Power Plant (BDPP).
For its part, SPC takes the risk of running the BDPP without any hold of Power Supply Agreement in response to apparent panic of the consumers who feared a repeat of the 2013 experience when Supertyphoon Yolanda shutdown the power transmission route from Leyte to Bohol.
Though it is a high-risk for SPC-BDPP to run the 12-MW power plant without any hold of Power Supply Agreement, they still agreed to supply power to BLCI to alleviate the predicament suffered by the consumers on the supply of power for water, hospitals, and other essential needs.
Because SPC-BDPP is running again, it was also able to jump-start Boheco I that needed to run its hydro-power plants to supply electricity to their consumers on rationing basis also.
Without the Power Supply Agreement, SPC-BDPP risks of not getting paid for its expenses in supplying diesel as fuel for the power plant in Barangay Dampas, Tagbilaran City.
On this, BLCI encourages its consumers to conserve power usage to maximize the available supply to shorten power rationing schedule.
On the other hand, Department of Energy (DOE) Sec. Al Cusi also assured Chatto that Bohol will have power from Cebu by Monday.
This means NGCP can then get power supply from Cebu to Leyte and from its Ormoc-Maasin transmission facilities, it can bring electricity to Bohol through the submarine cable to President Carlos P. Garcia that is received at the Ubay sub-station.
Chatto, who is in Canada for the Conbusac gathering stayed up since Thursday afternoon to contact Cusi, while Third District Rep. Arthur Yap and First District Rep. Rene Relampagos contacted the Energy Regulatory Commission.
The ERC then convened and gave go signal for the BDPP in Dampas to operate so the BLCI can implement power supply rationing.
The ERC had to hear the resolution from Sangguniang Panlalawigan, asking for a provisional authority for the operation of the Dampas power plant.
Initially, it was estimated that the Dampas diesel plant could sustain the first six hours from 7 p.m. on July 6 to 1 a.m. on July 7.
However, it encountered some hitches and tripped, causing the power rationing to be cut to a rate of two hours per stretch.
After BDPP fixed the hitches, BLCI managed to distribute electricity uninterrupted in most part of its service area since 10 p.m. on July 7, including Bohol Water Utility, Inc.
For his part, 2nd District Rep. Erico Aristotle Aumented was invited to an emergency meeting with SPC officials and BLCI Bohol Light Co. Inc. president Dennis Villareal in the evening of July 7 to discuss the power crisis situation in Bohol.
With stable supply from power generation sources, NGCP can facilitate up to 90MW for Bohol through its improved transmission facilities.
The National Grid Corporation of the Philippines runs with an efficient High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) link on an area control (AC) network.
NGCP’s HVDC facility in Ormoc houses the PHP10-billion converter which is the most expensive and vital component of the national grid.
All supply going to Bohol passes through the Leyte transmission line network.
NGCP has a total of 1,589.31 linear kilometers or 2,101.88 CKM for Transmission Line Network.
This includes the Leyte-Samar Transmission Line Network spans 259 line kilometers of 350-kilovolt transmission line.
It spans from Ormoc to Cabacungan in Northern Leyte.
A 350-kV transmission line is the highest of all voltage capacity levels.
NGCP also has an Emergency Restoration System (ERS) which is on standby in case transmission towers are toppled during typhoons or earthquakes.(Angeline Valencia/PNA)