By Perla Lena/ PNA NEWS
ILOILO CITY — Power supply is now back to normal after a partial blackout that hit portions of Panay and Guimaras past 12 a.m. Friday.
In an interview, Michelle Visera, regional corporate communications and public affairs officer for Western Visayas of the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP), said power transmission services were restored at 8:07 a.m. after the interruption that started 12:09 a.m.
She said the outage was caused by a snake, which was able to sneak into the Dingle substation of the NGCP that affected the Dingle-Barotac Viejo 138kV lines 1 and 2.
Visera said that the circuit breaker of one major equipment inside the switchyard automatically tripped when it detected a disturbance in the system.
Those affected were under the coverage of Panay Electric Company (PECO), Iloilo Electric Cooperatives (Ileco) 1 and 2; Guimaras Electric Cooperative (Guimelco); Aklan Electric Cooperative (Akelco); Antique Electric Cooperative (Anteco); Capiz Electric Cooperative (Capelco) and portions of the Iloilo Electric Cooperative 3 (Ileco 3).
PECO, which is dependent on Panay Energy Development Corporation (PEDC) for its power load, was also affected because the latter’s protection system also shut down after sensing the disturbance.
“This is just an isolated case. That is still subject to further investigation,” she said.
Visera added that while there are uncontrolled situations such as animal intrusion, their maintenance crew is on standby 24/7 to prevent similar incidents from happening.
She said they were unable to immediately restore the power because they conducted further inspection for other possible problems.
“They have to make sure that everything is cleared before the lines were energized,” she stated.
