Steag State Power Inc.'s power plant in Villanueva, Misamis Oriental, lights up. The power plant went full blast and online yesterday after it completed maintenance works on ts 105-mw generation unit. (photo courtesy of Steag)
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By HUSSEIN MACATORO, Editor
and NITZ ARANCON, Correspondent

STEAG State Power Inc.’s power plant went full blast as it completed its maintenance work on one of its two 105-megawatt generation units in Villanueva town in Misamis Oriental, significantly lowering the Mindanao power supply deficiency from 165 mw to 60 mw yesterday.

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The firm was done with its work five days ahead of the Aug. 16 schedule, ending the nearly one month of preventive maintenance shutdown of the Steag’s Unit 2 that brought to the fore and amplified the lingering Mindanao power crisis for the nth time. Steag power plant manager Dr. Carsten Evers said the unit was synchronized to the Mindanao grid at around 1 pm. “We are happy to note that the maintenance activities were carried out smoothly as planned and even restore the unit back to the grid way ahead of schedule,” Evers said.

But there is still a power deficit in the Mindanao grid, cautioned Jerome Soldevilla, one of Steag’s spokespersons. “It doesn’t mean there wouldn’t be power outages in Mindanao. We merely reduced the deficiency.”

Work and economic activities in many parts of Mindanao, including Cagayan de Oro, were crippled due to rotating daily blackouts since late July after Steag shut down one of its two 105-mw generation units for maintenance work.

In the city alone, the Cagayan Electric Power and Light Co. (Cepalco) scheduled as much as four hours of daily rotating blackouts due to the increased power supply deficiency. But Cepalco’s sister company Minergy and mini-hydroelectric power and solar plants, augmented by a supply from Therma South Inc. in Davao, subsequently gave the local power distributor more room to manage the city’s power supply.

Dr. Evers explained that preventive maintenance activities had to be carried out as part of Steag’s continuing commitment to ensure quality and long-term plant performance.

“Periodic preventive maintenance of our units is an important and necessary strategy to ensure that we have efficient and reliable plant operation. The goal is to provide Mindanao with a more sustained and stable electric power supply in the long run,” Evers said.

Steag president and chief executive officer Dr. Bodo Goerlich said the restoration of the power plant’s full capacity was expected to help improve the volatile power supply condition in Mindanao.

“With the full operation of SPI’s power plant, we anticipate improvements in the power supply condition of Mindanao, and ease up power shortages in some parts of the island,” Goerlich said.

He said Steag remains committed to help secure for Mindanao a reliable source of electric power necessary to propel its economic growth and progress.

Soldevilla earlier told the Gold Star Daily that the preventive maintenance shutdown was scheduled from July 18 to Aug. 16, and the energy department, the National Power Corp.-Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management (Napocor-Psalm), and National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP) were long aware of it.

Various industry sources said other sources of power in the Mindanao grid were supposed to have been maximized during the Steag preventive maintenance shutdown period but the exact opposite happened––Napocor’s Pulangi-Agus hydroelectric power plant complexes slowed down production because some of the power plants bogged down at a time when they were needed the most.

Before Steag went back online, the Mindanao grid was still on red alert status with a power reserve deficiency of more than 165 mw based on the island’s estimated system’s peak demand of nearly 1,300 mw.

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