Wednesday, February 11, 2004
2-hour brownout costs Veco more than P300T
By Liberty A. Pinili
Sun.Star Staff Reporter
THE Visayan Electric Co. (Veco) suffered revenue losses of more than P300,000 because of Monday night’s brownout, which lasted for more than two hours.
Although the power situation improved a little last night because the Thermal Plant 2 of Salcon Power in Naga became operational again, Veco public information officer Ethel Taneo-Natera said that a shortage of 20 megawatts caused the power firm to turn off three feeders from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. and another three from 7 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.
The move caused brownouts of up to one hour in the entire Bulacao and portions of Banilad (Cebu City), Mabolo, Apas, Lahug, M.J Cuenco, North Reclamation Area, Pasil, Mambaling, Pardo (all in Cebu City), Man-daue and Talisay.
As of 7 last night, Veco had a total supply of 211 megawatts (mw): 155 mw from the National Power Corp. (Napocor), 46 mw from Toledo Power Corp. and East Asia Utilities Corp. with 10 mw.
Veco has warned of possible power interruptions from Feb. 9 to 13 because of a shortfall of 60 megawatts caused by the corrective maintenance shutdown of the Ermita power plant 2 of Cebu Private Power Corp. (CPPC).
CPPC is one of Veco’s power suppliers.
Natera said the shortfall was compounded by the failure of Salcon to supply the Cebu-Negros-Panay grid about 55 mw since its thermal plant 2 was still not operational last Monday, although the facility was scheduled to be activated Sunday yet.
Worse, Toledo Power Corp. was unable to provide the grid 25 mw of backup supply.
Overall, Veco had a shortage of 70,887 kilowatts Monday night, which is equivalent to over P300,000 of revenues lost.
The power outage in several areas in Cebu, Mandaue, Talisay and Naga occurred from 5:50 to 8:32 Monday night.
Natera said for every 23,000-kilowatt shortage, and with an average selling price of P4.75 per kw per hour, Veco suffered revenue losses of P109,250.
“We could have earned that if we had the supply,” she said.
Meanwhile, National Transmission Corp. (Transco) vice president for Visayas Jules Alcantara assured that the maintenance shutdown of Salcon’s thermal power plant 1 and the Pa-limpinon plant in Negros Oriental will not occur simultaneously.
In a separate interview, Alcantara said maintenance shutdown of Salcon’s thermal power plant 1 will be undertaken after thermal power plant 2 is fully operational and CPPC’s Ermita power plant is reactivated.
CPPC projected that the corrective maintenance of its Ermita plant will be completed by Friday.
Alcantara said the Palimpinon power plant in Negros Oriental will also undergo maintenance shutdown, but only after the thermal plant 1 is reactivated after maintenance work.
“We don’t want to worsen the deficiencies,” he said.
(February 11, 2004 issue)
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