The Department of Energy (DOE) assured the public there will be stable power supply in Panay despite an earlier advisory from the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines of a possible outage due to “unresolved internal issues” of a power plant supplying electricity to the area.

In a media forum, DOE Assistant Secretary Mario Marasigan said NGCP’s advisory was just a precautionary measure and should not cause alarm.

“Ang situation ngayon … stable po ‘yung grid system natin. May ample supply tayo, walang kakulangan,” he said.

“Kasi dapat ‘pag nag-send out tayo ng information, hindi siya alarming, dapat precautionary measures. ‘Yun pong statement na lumabas, sana po ang i-pick-up ng marami … It’s just a precautionary measure,” Marasigan added.

The NGCP earlier said another manual load dropping (MLD) “may be implemented in the event of the tripping of another large plant in the Panay subgrid.”

Its advisory followed the MLD that resulted in at about 20-minute power interruption on the Negros and Panay subgrid on January 17.

“The unresolved internal issues of the remaining major power plants [PEDC Units 1 and 2, and PCPC] that precipitated the January 2 incident, qualify as a significant threat to system security following a credible N-1 event, and justify manual intervention by the System Operator NGCP under Philippine Grid Code Section 6.2.3.4.”

“In order to preserve the integrity of the transmission system, NGCP implemented manual load dropping,” NGCP stated.

Marasigan explained that only one plant remains non-operational — the same plant that encountered issues before the January 2 blackout.

“Para maiwasan po natin na magkaroon pa ng sitwasyon na January 2, kung meron pang isa o dalawang planta na magkakaroon pa ng problema, saka po sila magi-isyu ng talagang advisory na magkakaroon ng manual load dropping,” he said.

Marasigan noted the current power demand in Panay is not the same as on January 2. (ABS-CBN News)