Desirous to improve its service to its customers, Davao Light and Power Company has redesigned its substations for enhanced reliability.
Last April 16, Davao Light inaugurated its 10MVA 69/13.8kV Bunawan substation which is the second unit with the reconstructed design. The first one was the 69/13.8kV Victoria substation, which was completed last August 2011.
According to Engr. Ronald Chan, Assistant Vice President for the distribution utility’s Engineering group, the advanced features of the rehabilitated substation are designed to make the facility more accessible for repair and maintenance work with consideration on the safety concerns for the maintenance crew. In addition it has also instituted a more eco-friendly system ensuring oils are trapped in case of spillage from the equipment in effect protecting the soil.
In order to protect sensitive equipment from wear and tear due to harsh weather conditions, these are now housed in a separate enclosed building. This set up reduces the incidence of outages due to mechanical failure of the said equipment, Chan said.
Assigned as Project Engineer Ryan Varona said that the reconstructed substation now provides a space for a Mobile Substation necessary to carry the loads of the power substation if a major problem occurs specifically affecting the substation’s power transformer. This is designed to avert a prolonged power interruption which happens when a power transformer has to be repaired before restoration can be implemented.
