ANGELES CITY – Thousands of households and business establishments in almost the entire province of Pampanga, including multi-national firms at the Clark Freeport, suffered from blackout starting 8 a.m. up to
11 p.m. last Sunday, unknowing of what had caused the prolonged power failure.
The explanation came yesterday, amid a statement issued by the Philippine Information Agency (PIA) in San Fernando that the hours of power outages that outraged local folk was to give way to the “energizing” of the 300-megavolt ampere (MVA) transformer of the National Grid Corp. (NGCP) in Mexico town.
Tens of thousands of affected households and businesses were not previously informed about the power outage. The affected areas are those covered by the Pampanga I Electric Cooperative (PELCO I), Pampanga Rural Electric Cooperative (PRESCO), Clark Electric Distribution Corp. and Pampanga II Electric Cooperative (PELCO II).
NGCP insisted that the power outage was announced two weeks previously, but admitted that it was prolonged due to unforeseen circumstances. It said the power failure was supposed to last only up to 6 p.m.
Diosdado Pangilinan, chairman of the Mabalacat Waterworks System which relies on electricity to supply water to households in Mabalacat town, said he did not expect power interruption to last up to 11 p.m. last Sunday. This, amid unconfirmed initial reports of power outage that was supposed to last only up to 6 p.m.
“The energization of the said 300-MVA transformer in Mexico Substation is part of the Luzon Substation Expansion Project I, which will increase substation capacity to meet power load growth and provide N-1 contingency or back-up to other substations in North Luzon. A second transformer is scheduled to be energized on July 9,” the PIA statement said.
“The transfer of the feeders from its current source to the new switchyard and the installation of new lines were completed before the scheduled time,” the NGCP said.
It explained that the power outage was prolonged by “unforeseen technical problems, however, were encountered by the NGCP team working on the new equipment and caused delays in the energization of the facility which took place at around 8:40 p.m.”
However, NGCP said that power consumers were told about the scheduled power interruption as early as two weeks before.
