MANILA, Philippines — As some areas in the country are lying along the so-called Pacific jinx thus frequently visited by typhoons, the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) has started institutionalizing an emergency response system that could deal with disaster-related upsets and other types of “troubles” in the power system.

The company said its Integrated Typhoon Action Plan (ITAP) has been designed to provide for “guidelines and coordinate procedures in preparing and coping not just with typhoons, but also other events which may cause grid disturbances.” These will rope in tropical depressions, storms, heavy rains, flash floods, earthquakes and tsunami.

“The ITAP lays out specific tasks and assignments per group that would expedite power restoration processes during actual emergencies,” the company noted.

At the very least, the company sets out assurance to the public that it is “fully prepared to mitigate the impact of these contingencies on daily operations.” So far, that has been a departure from the July 2010 incident when the company was caught flat footed on its lack of preparedness on power restoration when a super typhoon hit the country then.

NGCP noted that among the preparations it has been working on are: Posting of line crews in strategic pre-selected locations to speed up actual deployment, inspection and evaluation of damages on facilities, among others.

During typhoon season, the company also opts on postponement of all scheduled transmission line and substation shutdowns in the affected areas “until such time that the situation has stabilized.” Added to the restoration efforts would be the “provision of back-up telecommunication facilities.”

With the additional investments it has been shelling out to improve the transmission network, NGCP emphasized that its steel towers are now “at par with or ahead of international standards for design methodologies and remains consistent with current practices in other countries.”

It must be noted that when super typhoons struck the country years back, they downed heaps of transmission towers and other related facilities. Those incidents then exposed the weaknesses in the transmission system, so when the operations of the grid was privatized, the commitment of the concessionaire to modernize the grid became one of the major considerations.

The grid operator admitted that “power outages or interruptions, including a worst case system blackout caused by physically damaged structures are the most common emergency situations for NGCP.”

It emphasized that “although power transmission lines have been traditionally designed to sustain wind loads, dead loads (the constant weight of a structure, including the structure itself and its permanent fixtures), erection and maintenance loads and cable tension, NGCP engineers have been indirectly factoring in earthquake loads into the design of tower structures.”

The company’s engineers explained that “tower design is governed by wind forces rather than seismic forces,” hence, they noted that “even in areas of high seismic activity like the Philippines, the forces generated by earthquakes would exceed the wind loads calculated in designing the tower.”