Repair of damaged Misamis power plant to take several weeks – DOE

MANILA, Philippines - The 210-megawatt Steag State Power coal-fired power plant in Misamis Oriental in northern Mindanao remains offline after an island-wide power outage hit Mindanao on Feb. 27.

It would take several weeks to repair the plant, a situation that would continue to cause two- to three-hour rotating blackouts in Mindanao.

“It’s not yet online and there’s no date yet (on when it will be online) but according to them it will take weeks,” Energy Secretary Carlos Jericho Petilla said.

In a separate advisory, Steag communication officer Jerome Soldevilla said the plant’s turbine generator sets sustained damage.

“The Steag coal-fired power plant remains offline after sustaining damage to its turbine generator sets last Thursday. It will take several weeks or more to restore the units back online. Rest assured that we are doing our best and working round the clock to restore the units and help ease up the precarious power supply in Mindanao,” he said.

At 3:53 a.m. on Feb. 27, an island-wide power outage gripped Mindanao, a region of 25 million people, stemming from the tripping of the Agus 1 hydroelectric power plant in Marawi City.

The National Power Corp. (Napocor), which owns the Agus plants, said it continues to cooperate with the joint investigation of the Department of Energy (DOE) and National Transmission Corp. (TransCo) on the blackout.

“Napocor has already submitted the data logs of its power plants in Mindanao to the DOE, and will respect whatever findings the joint committee assigned on the investigation may come up with,” Napocor president Gladys Sta. Rita said.

At present, Napocor and the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines, the grid operator, are closely collaborating with each other to reconcile their respective data on the incident to ensure timely completion of the joint investigation.

“We are working closely with other electric power stakeholders in order to ensure the seamless operations of the state-owned power plants in Mindanao that contribute to the power supply adequacy and reliability of the Mindanao grid,” Sta. Rita said.