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By NITZ ARANCON
Correspondent

THE Cagayan Electric Power and Light Co. (Cepalco) yesterday canceled its schedule of rotating blackouts this week as the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP) trashed its red alert advisory to Mindanao’s power distributors after Steag State State Power Inc.’s power plant went full blast and online on Tuesday afternoon.

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The Cepalco announcement came even as Steag spokesperson Jerome Soldevilla assured that the firm no longer has a scheduled long preventive maintenance shutdown this year.

Cepalco senior vice president Ralph Paguio said the scheduled rotational blackouts in the city and parts of Misamis Oriental under the Cepalco franchise have been canceled because the Steag power plant can now operate at full 210-megawatt capacity. “Wala nata mag-implement sa atong load shedding schedule due to the available supply of power,” Paguio said.

Elizabeth Ladaga, an NGCP spokesperson, said the firm also canceled its red alert advisory to local power distributors because Mindanao’s power generation capacity has been given a significant boost after Steag completed its maintenance work on one of its two 105-mw generation units.

Ladaga told local radio that NGCP’s transmission lines and facilities were also functioning well. Soldevilla said Steag has scheduled no long preventive maintenance shutdown until yearend but he said that if the need arises, it would only last for one day to three days at most.

“No more long PMS schedule for the remaining months of this year, only minor maintenance activities for the short duration of 1 to 3 days,” reads an SMS sent by Soldevilla.

Paguio, for his part, said Cepalco waould remain dependent on the National Power Corp. (Napocor) and NGCP for power supply. He said as long as the power supply is sufficient and Cepalco faces no technical problems, there won’t be blackouts here.

“Actually, the schedule we issued was just a guide. If there was an advise from NGCP to shed the load, we did. But whenever the supply was sufficient and there was no advise from NGCP, there was no power interruption,” he said.

Paguio said Cepalco has continued receiving supply of six megawatts from South Therma Inc. in Davao City despite the development “aron masiguro gyud nga dunay supisinting supply sa kuryente ang franchise area sa Cepalco.”

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