Transmission woes cause Metro Manila - Rizal blackouts

Eastern Metro Manila and Rizal province experienced rotating blackouts as Meralco implemented manual load dropping due to the shutdown of a transformer bank.

The blackouts were expected to compensate for the shutdown of the Dolores substation of the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines. But Meralco's target of restoring power will be delayed for another three days after its substations tripped due to critical loading and in its attempt to shift load. This caused the eleven cities and towns in eastern Metro Manila and Rizal province subjected to rotating blackouts.

The three substations that tripped were Mandaluyong, Hillcrest and SM-Shangri-La. Meralco said the development “will result in longer duration of power outages in affected areas.”

The series of power outages began late Wednesday night, 7 October, in several parts of Metro Manila and Rizal after power was cut off to 13 Meralco substations including those situated in St. Anthony, Manggahan, Parang, Masinag, Marikina, Santolan, Cainta, Shangri-la, Mandaluyong, Hillcrest, Dolores, Cubao bank no. 2 and New Teresa. This resulted to outages in various portions of Mandaluyong, Pasig, Marikina, Taguig; parts of Quezon City including Cubao. Outages were also experienced in Cainta, Angono, Taytay, Binangonan, Antipolo, San Mateo and Montalban.

As of 11:40 p.m., Wednesday evening, power has already been restored to most of the affected areas after Meralco opted to shift load or transfer sourced power to operational substations. Only Dolores 44XM and portions of Dolores 47 XM were not restored.

At 6:39 a.m. Thursday, 8 October, Meralco resorted to MLD affecting circuits served by Cubao and Marikina substations in order to ease the critical loading of Araneta-Kamuning 115 kV line.

NGCP said that at 8:48 p.m. Wednesday, one of four 300-megavolt ampere transformers caught fire, triggering the tripping of the other transformers and five 115-kilovolt lines of Meralco. The fire was contained at around 10:30 p.m.

Supt. Manuel Pion, Taytay's chief of police, said security guards of the NGCP claimed they heard a loud explosion before they saw the transformer on fire. Pion said the facility is fenced and well guarded, and that the possibility of sabotage was remote.