THE Visayan Electric has assured its customers that the rotating brownouts that have happened in Luzon due to power supply problems will not happen in its franchise area.
President and chief operating officer Raul Lucero said while there is enough power in the Visayas Grid, Visayan Electric also has an existing contract with a diesel power plant, Cebu Private Power Corp. (CPPC), whose role is to provide peaking and dispatchable power to Visayan Electric especially in times of tight grid supply.
“Visayas is still okay in terms of power reserves as reported by the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP), which is why we are doing fine compared to Luzon. However, in case there will be concerns in power reserves in the Visayas, our customers in Visayan Electric are assured that rotating brownouts will be minimal or will not happen at all because it has a power supply agreement with Cebu Private Power Corp.,” Lucero said.
He added that the contract can provide the power that the Visayan Electric needs to supply electricity to its customers.
“This is the importance of bilateral contracts with power generators, that they can provide what we need in case there are concerns with power supply,” he said.
In Visayan Electric’s radio program “Power Fridays” over station dyLA, Department of Energy Region 7’s engineer Jorey Maleza said there are enough power plants in the Visayas to supply the demand and prevent rotating brownouts from happening.
Maleza said that among the reasons for the power supply concerns in Luzon are unplanned power plant outages and power plant preventive maintenance schedules. He added that as of June 3, 2021, power reserves in Luzon have normalized and the energy department expects that this will be the trend in the coming days.
In July 2017, the Visayan Electric implemented rotating brownouts after facilities of the NGCP were affected in the magnitude 6.5 earthquake that struck central Leyte. The rotating brownouts implemented at that time were one hour in duration that lasted for about two weeks. (PR)