
Courtesy: Angeline Silverio Dellera
THE Manila Electric Company (Meralco) has issued an apology to some two million customers affected by rotating blackout or manual load dropping (MLD) implemented on Saturday in response to a severe lack of electricity supply.
Customers in Batangas, Bulacan, Cavite, Laguna, Metro Manila, Pampanga, Rizal and Quezon were affected, the distribution utility said, adding that services were fully restored by just before midnight.
“We sincerely apologize to our customers for the inconvenience caused by this challenging situation.
We continue to proactively exhaust all demand-side management efforts to help minimize, if not avert, power interruptions,” Meralco spokesperson and head of corporate communications Joe Zaldarriaga said in a statement.
The National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) said that the Luzon grid was under normal condition Sunday after rotational power interruptions hit millions of households in the island on Saturday due to significant supply deficiency, Meralco said Sunday.
Meralco implemented manual load dropping — which lasted an average of 1.5 hours starting at 2:17 p.m. Saturday — as the Luzon grid was placed under Red Alert, the power distributor said.
“Today, June 2, NGCP said the Luzon Grid is under normal condition,” it said.
Almost 2 million customers in parts of Batangas, Bulacan, Cavite, Laguna, Metro Manila, Pampanga, Rizal, and Quezon had been affected by the power interruptions, Meralco said.
Meralco said its commercial and industrial customers deloaded a collective capacity of more than 200 MW on Saturday to help mitigate the impact of the Red Alert “that lasted almost half of the day.”