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Aboitiz Power unit to energize Davao substation
Davao Light and Power Co. Inc. (Davao Light), a subsidiary of Aboitiz Power Corporation, is slated to energize its new digital substation this year, which will then serve as one of its strategic steps to improve as well as address the growing demand of electricity for consumers in the southern part of Davao City.
Chad Ramos, head of Davao Light’s Power Systems Planning and Design Department, said “the new facility will have a switching station capable of interconnecting and switching between different supply lines making it less susceptible to interruptions, improving overall availability and reliability within the service area.”
He added that the new substation facility “can also back up other substations especially during unplanned power outages.”
Davao Light explained that “a substation is a key component within a power distribution system that transforms electricity voltage making it ready to be safely used by residential, commercial, and industrial consumers.”
The power firm said its Binugao substation “will provide more reliable service and help meet future demand as it has an increased capacity of 33 MVA (megavolt ampere), twice that of the older facilities.”
The company further indicated that “when a nearby substation trips causing a power outage, the facility can help carry its load to prevent a longer duration of power interruption.”
According to Davao Light, when the new substation kicks off commercial operation by third quarter this year, this will add up to the list of 27 substations being operated by the power utility in servicing customers within its franchise area – including those in Davao City, Panabo City as well as the municipalities of Carmen, Dujali and Santo Tomas.
For the entire Aboitiz group, it has been pursuing gradual digitalization through its power supply chain – although this remains a long journey from what the power sector currently perceives as ‘techglitch-merate’ state of some of its electric generating facilities if reckoned on its vision of transformation into a ‘techglomerate’.
The components of the Aboitiz group’s operations that already jumpstarted on their digitalization odyssey include those on substation, control center for its hydro facilities as well as the pilot for digital twin of its candidate-power plants in Visayas and Mindanao.
“Operations are made safer and more efficient as the new digital facility can be controlled and monitored in real-time,” the Aboitiz firm stressed.
At this stage, however, it still takes longer for it to track technical glitches being experienced in the on-and-off generation of its coal plants, especially those that are sited in the problematic Luzon grid.
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