Davao City experiences up to 3-hour blackouts

DAVAO CITY , Philippines  – It used to be just an hour, then two hours, but last weekend, the Davao Light and Power Co. raised up to three hours the rotational blackouts due to the continuing decrease in power supply from the Mindanao hydropower grid.

Starting last Aug. 24, Ross Luga, Davao Light’s corporate communications officer, said certain parts of the city have already been experiencing up to three hours of power outages because of the further reduction in the generation capacity of the hydroelectric power plants dependent on Lake Lanao in Lanao de Sur and Pulangi River in Bukidnon.

Luga cited figures of the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP) that Mindanao has lately registered a power generation deficiency of more than 700 megawatts.

“This is attributable to the continued lowering of the water elevation of the lake and decreasing water inflow in Pulangi River. This condition at the major power sources has forced the NGCP to increase its load curtailment to Davao Light,” Luga said.

Davao Light alone imposed a 127-MW curtailment from 116 MW in its franchise area.

“While Davao Light is exerting its best efforts, it cannot guarantee to keep the rotational outages within two hours due to variability of load and the changing of curtailment levels of National Power Corp. and NGCP,” Luga said.

Davao City though is the only place in the country that has a standby power plant, which has been a big help in easing the power shortage.

Luga said Davao Light’s standby diesel plant in Bajada is currently generating an average of 35 MW, while the Hedcor Sibulan plant provides a peak capacity of 18 MW.

Davao City is considered to be the biggest power consumer in Mindanao, accounting for almost one-half of the total demand on the island.