DAVAO CITY—The Aboitiz-owned Davao Light and Power Co. has reminded city residents to observe a law against disrupting power lines, pointing out to successive power outages in two days of late October caused by “bad weather, flood and a dislodged tarpaulin.”
Davao Light Assistant Vice President For Engineering Operations Orville C. Lazaro said they’re reiterating their call against power-line obstructions “after the incident [that] caused inconveniences to many.”
“This is not the first time that we experienced an outage with a tarpaulin as a cause,” Lazaro said.
He added that tarpaulins “have been giving us problems.” Lazaro said they have requested the billboard owners “to regularly inspect these tarpaulins which over time deteriorate.”
“Being the owner of these structures, you have the responsibility to clear the area along the power lines,” he added.
Lazaro cited Republic Act 11361, or the Anti-Obstruction of Power Lines Act. The law provides for “uninterrupted conveyance of electricity from generating plants to end users and protect the integrity and reliability of the country’s transmission, sub-transmission and distribution systems by keeping the land beneath, the air spaces surrounding and the area traversed by power lines clear of dangerous obstructions.”
Lazaro said his company “would continue to protect [our] lines and campaign against power-line obstructions.” He said the firm is also asking the public to report any incident or situation such as kite flying, planting of tall trees, installation of billboard tarpaulins and all other activities “that will possibly lead to obstruction or pose hazards to power lines and the community.”
According to Lazaro, the company’s linemen aboard a boom truck had to remove the 100-feet high billboard tarpaulin that fell on power lines and blamed as one three causes for the wide-area power interruption in Davao City last October.
“We experienced various power interruptions during these two nights with causes ranging from heavy rains and flooding, with the latter, being unavoidable in view of safety,” he said. “However, a wide area interruption on these two nights was caused by a billboard tarpaulin [falling on power lines], which could have been entirely avoided.”
A wide-area power outage on the night of October 25 was attributed to a transient fault, or a temporary disturbance along the lines.
According to Lazaro, National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP) employees who conducted a survey of their transmission lines from New Loon in Mintal to Magtuod in Maa failed to find the cause of the outage.
“The same thing happened with Davao Light’s survey of its power distribution lines from Magtuod to the Bajada substation: no line problem was seen,” he added.
It was only after the wide-area interruption on the evening of October 27 that employees saw a tarpaulin barely hanging on a billboard along Buhangin intersection.
“It was seen swinging with the strong winds thereby repeatedly hitting Davao Light’s 138-kilovolt power line,” Lazaro said. “The tarpaulin might have been dislodged from where it was attached because of the bad weather the past few days.”