A blackout that hit most of Panay and Negros Occidental plunged thousands of Western Visyayas residents into darkness Friday night, March 1.
In Negros Occidental the blackout started at 6:59 p.m. and power was gradually restored starting 8:30 p.m. Friday.
The National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP), in a press statement, said the “initiating cause of the partial blackout was the tripping of the largest plant in Panay, Panay Energy Development Corp. 3, with a 150MW capacity”.
It was closely followed by the tripping of the rest of the power plants in Panay, the NGCP added.
The NGCP denied that the tripping of its facilities caused the partial blackout in Negros and Panay.
A fire in Jaro, Iloilo, shown in a video circulating on social media was 15 meters away from a NGCP transmission tower and did not damage its power line. The transmission asset also did not trip or register a disturbance prior to the successive generator shutdowns, the NGCP said.
The fire has been extinguished and poses no further threat to the NGCP transmission facility, it added.*