ALTHOUGH there is no shortfall in the power supply for Camotes Islands, outdated distribution lines and lack of coordination between its distributor and power-generator may have led to electricity dilemma.
These were among the findings Gov. Gwendolyn Garcia had come up with after meeting with officials of the Cebu Electric Cooperative (Celco) and the Small Power Utilities Group, a division under the National Power Corp. (NPC), last Friday, Nov. 29, 2019.
"There is really an excess of power. It's a matter of distribution lines tripping each time that's why it needs an upgrade," she said on Monday, Dec. 2.
The plant in San Francisco town has a capacity of 3,030 kilowatts (kw), but Celco's demand at peak hour is only 2,865 kw.
"There's even a reserve of 165 (kw). That was the supply and demand (report) for November 2019.
There will even be additional capacity that will be installed, but this is not largely due to lack of power supply. It is because of line faults and the need to upgrade around 30 kilometers of single phase distribution lines to three phase," Garcia said.
During their meeting, it was found that Celco has a monthly income of around P6 million, 50 percent of which is used to finance operational cost, allowances and salaries of workers, among others.
The remaining P3 million, on the other hand, may be used to fund civil works for the upgrading of distribution lines.
Celco's distribution lines, though, have reportedly not been upgraded in the past 28 years.
"We saw that there needed to be more coordination between NPC and Celco. I got the sense that there wasn't much communication going on between them so I said, 'From hereon, let's stop pointing fingers and let's stop trying to prove that the other one is wrong. In the end, it's not you that's going to suffer but the people in Camotes'," Garcia said.
"You don't even hold coordination meetings. You should not regard each other as enemies, you should be regarding each other as partners. If that's the case then I'll put both of you to task for not owning up to the responsibility of providing uninterrupted power in Camotes," she continued.
The governor will meet again with officials of Celco and NPC on Thursday, Dec. 12, to discuss updates on the move to upgrade. (SunStar Cebu)