RESIDENTS of Lapu-Lapu City and Cordova town can expect brownouts as a result of the fire that damaged a power company’s facility in Naga City.
Dr. Eduardo Ompad, head of the Department of Education Lapu-Lapu City Division, said that eight public night high schools may bear the brunt of the power interruptions.
He hopes brownouts will not be scheduled during class hours in these schools, which do not have generator sets. The schools will have to move their classes earlier if the brownout is scheduled to hit at night, Ompad said.
“We will coordinate with the Mactan Electric Co. (Meco),” he said, adding he will also meet with principals of night high schools.
Meco announced yesterday it will implement daily rotating brownouts because of the lack of power supply.
Meco General Manager Gilbert Pagobo said that the power utility firm gets 40 percent of its supply from the Kepco-Salcon Power Corp. (KSPC), owner of the facility that got damaged by a fire last Friday.
But Lapu-Lapu isn’t the only city in Cebu that faces the probability of power cuts.
The Department of Energy (DOE) announced yesterday that brownouts were likely because the Visayas power grid lacked supply.
Engineer Jose Rey Maleza, DOE supervising science specialist, said the initial projection from the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) was that power supply in the Visayas would be short by about 230 megawatts (mw).
However, the actual shortfall was only 30 mw after the Visayas grid sourced additional power from Luzon.
Repairs
Even as KSPC shut down its two 100-mw coal-fired power plants for preventive maintenance in the City of Naga, two 82-mw coal-fired power plants of the Cebu Energy Development Corp. (CEDC) in Toledo City also had to undergo emergency repairs.
Peak power supply in the Visayas grid yesterday was 1,332 mw but the demand was 1,556 mw, Maleza said.
Meco’s Pagobo, in an interview over radio dyAB, said they have asked for supply from other power sources but have yet to get a positive response.
On its Facebook account, Meco said power outages will last for one to two hours. The rotational brownout started yesterday, which happened to be the first day of classes.
Pagobo advised power consumers to conserve electricity.
The KSPC earlier said it cannot operate its two 100-megawatt coal-fired power plants that supplies Meco while the fire-damaged facilities undergo repair.
Maleza assured, however, that if one of KSPC’s plants can resume operating this week, along with one of CEDC’s coal-fired plants, power supply will be back to normal.
Interviewed separately, Teresa Sederiosa of the Visayan Electric Company (VECO) said that the utility lost about 63.8 mw as a result of the supply curtailment.
But so far, Sederiosa said, no brownouts were implemented because participants in the Interruptible Load Program (ILP) helped.
ILP participants use their own generators when VECO’s supply falls short, and the distributor pays them for the cost of fuel and lubricants. As a result, the rest of VECO’s clients need not have to endure power outages.