(Taguig City) The Department of Energy (DOE), alongside its attached agencies, continuously coordinates and addresses the status of the energy facilities amid the massive effect of Super Typhoon Yolanda in the central Philippines to restore power by 24 December 2013.
In a meeting earlier today, Energy Secretary Carlos Jericho Petilla, together with the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP) and the National Electrification Administration (NEA), drew out all necessary measures to speed up the mobilization of the rehabilitation efforts in the affected areas, such as technical people, construction materials and equipments, among others.
Sec. Petilla also made a request to the agencies that “if technical people of electric cooperatives are available and can help the people of NGCP or the other way around for NEA, they can do so,” in order to quicken the repairs of the transmission facilities.
NGCP reported that there were a total of 1,959 transmission facilities that were damaged including backbone transmission lines, steel poles, and a converter station.
To speed up the repairs, NGCP said it has been installing Emergency Restoration Systems (ERS) in order to replace the transmission lines along with the continuous rehabilitation of the damaged facilities. ERS is a temporary transmission pole that can last up to 10 years. Permanent poles will be erected as soon as the power situation in the affected areas stabilizes.
Also critical for bringing back the power in the Visayas is the rehabilitation and reconstruction of the high-voltage direct current (HVDC) converter station and the Ormoc-Cabacungan 350kv HVDC line which is targeted to be back online by 20 December 2013. The HVDC interconnects the Luzon and the Visayas grids.
On the side of the distribution facilities, NEA reported that there are 17 electric cooperatives (EC) affected by the typhoon. These ECs respectively serve the islands of Northern Palawan, Bantayan and Camotes in Cebu and the provinces of Antique, Aklan, Biliran, Bohol, Capiz, Iloilo, Eastern Samar, Samar, and Leyte.
As of November 21, several towns are already energized in the provinces of Aklan (5), Antique (13), Bohol (7), Capiz (1), Leyte (2) and Iloilo (29), Camotes Island, Cebu (2), and in the franchise area of Busuanga Electric Cooperative in Palawan (2). Target completion of all restoration efforts in the said areas is on 09 December 2013.
The DOE emphasizes that generation, transmission, and distribution facilities must be all together operational for power situation in the affected areas to normalize. Likewise, the DOE continues to appeal to Luzon and Visayas power consumers to exercise energy efficiency and conservation to be able to provide ample supply of power in Visayas via the HVDC line.