BACOLOD CITY, Negros Occidental, Philippines – The Department of Energy and the Energy Regulatory Commission have been directed to look deeper into the problem of frequent brownouts in both Panay and Negros Islands, especially with Central Negros Electric Cooperative initially pinpointed as the cause of the tripoffs according to the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines.
Senator Raffy Tulfo, chairperson of the Senate Committee on Energy, has directed the two government institutions to come up with an indepth investigation on the issue of frequent brownouts and power interruptions in the Islands of Panay and Negros as he continues to monitor the developments.
Tulfo, in his Facebook page, has said the DOE has already scheduled a Zoom meeting with the senator to report steps they had taken including appropriate penalties that the ERC might impose.
Earlier, the office of the senator had created an investigation and monitoring team after receiving information that the cause of the frequent tripoffs was the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines.
When his team made initial investigations, the NGCP instead blamed the line faults on areas covered by the Central Negros Electric Cooperative as the cause of the interruptions.
These line faults cause a domino effect on NGCP’s transmission lines reaching even those in Panay.
On the other hand, Ceneco said the reason for the frequent tripoffs was on the voltage fluctuation and frequency imbalance of the NGCP’s 69kV line.
Affected are electric cooperatives in Panay and Negros including not just Ceneco but also those in Iloilo, Antique, Guimaras, and Capiz.
These electric cooperatives affected had also come up with a unified stand pointing to NGCP as the cause of the interruptions.
