“Hopefully today, Monday, August 26, we can start to test energize it ( Alijis Sub-Station) and if it does not encounter any problem, by around midnight of Monday, this should be ready and by Tuesday, August 27, the power supply will go back to normal.”
This was stressed by Negros Electric and Power Corp. (NEPC) President and Chief Executive Officer Roel Castro on Saturday, August 24, after the Alijis Sub-Station, a 37.5 MegaVolt Ampere (MVA) with seven feeders, in Barangay Alijis, Bacolod City, experienced an internal explosion and all the seven feeders that are connected to the sub-station to deliver power to about 47,000 consumers were affected.
Castro said the incident happened around 9 p.m. on Wednesday, August 21, and they immediately conducted some tests on the transformer and it was determined that it was damaged.
“So there’s nothing we can do immediately to fix it to restore the power supply for the consumers, so we planned out that the seven feeders will be linked to other feeders coming from other sub-stations,” he said.
He added at around 5 a.m. Thursday, August 22, they managed to link six of the seven feeders to other sub-stations, and only the Feeder 3 of Barangay Alijis which served at least 6,000 consumers was not able to be linked to other feeders because they needed to build a 1.5-kilometer line to connect it to Murcia Feeder 1.
“We cannot link it to other feeders because it’s already full and of the six feeders, we also implemented a rotating outage to energize the affected areas,” Castro said.
He said on Saturday, August 24, they pulled out the damaged transformer in the Alijis Sub-Station and replaced it with an 18 MVA transformer from Lopez Sub-Station in addition to the 10MVA from the mobile sub-station in Iloilo City.
“So by Tuesday, we will have a 28MVA, and the six feeders still be linked to other feeders or sub-stations. All the seven feeders will be energized,” he added.
Castro explained that the Alijis Sub-Station is a facility that accepts the electricity coming from the national grid, at 138kV or 138,000 volts from the grid, and the sub-station will step bound at 13.2kV that will pass to the seven feeders then, to the transformers in the electric poles to convert it at 220 volts for the consumer's appliances.
He said in the franchise area of the NEPC, the joint venture partner of Central Negros Electric Cooperative (Ceneco), there’s a total of 11 sub-stations and Alijis Sub-Station is one of the importation sub-stations because it is within the city.
“We just started our operation on August 1. We didn’t want this, this is something that we don’t want to happen. This is something unforeseen, my apologies, we are taking responsibility for this because it is an electric service, but no one wanted this,” he added.
Castro noted that their people have been working already for 48 hours to restore the power supply.
Castro said the rehabilitation of the Alijis-Sub Station may cost at least P70 million, which it’s part of their P2 billion capital expenditures to rehabilitate and modernize electric power distribution to make it reliable and efficient for consumers, businesses, institutions, and other users within its franchise area.
Aside from power interruptions, the affected residents also experienced no water supply due to a lack of generators from the Baciwa-PrimeWater.
On Saturday, August 24, Councilor Claudio Puentevella, chairperson of the City Council committee on energy and public utilities, held an emergency meeting with the officials of NEPC, Ceneco, Baciwa-PrimeWater, and Metro Bacolod Chamber of Commerce and Industry to address the problem.
Of four pumping stations of Baciwa-PrimeWater in the south area, Castro said NEPC voluntarily provided two new generators for the two pumping stations while the two other pumping stations were connected by NEPC to their feeders.
He said they will also deliver water to the affected areas until the power supply will be normalized.
Moreover, Mayor Alfredo Abelardo Benitez, in a statement, said that they acknowledge the recent updates from Negros Power regarding their efforts to normalize the power supply to the Alijis substation.
He said they are targeting to begin restoring service by Monday night at the earliest or Tuesday morning at the latest, with full restoration of the Alijis Feeders expected by September 2.
“Negros Power has committed to rehabilitating and upgrading our power infrastructure, a crucial step toward ensuring the reliable delivery of electricity to Bacolod City,” he added.
The mayor noted that the Local Government Unit (LGU) of Bacolod City will continue working closely with Negros Power to implement immediate solutions and ensure long-term infrastructure improvements for the benefit of all residents.
“We appreciate the patience and understanding of our citizens during this time. Rest assured, the city government is doing everything within its capacity to expedite the resolution of these issues and ensure a more reliable power supply for everyone,” Benitez said./MAP