ENERGY Secretary Alfonso Cusi will be in Bacolod City on October 17 to 18 to discuss the power problems in the coverage areas of Central Negros Electric Cooperative (Ceneco) and other distribution utilities in the Negros Island Region (NIR).
This was confirmed yesterday by Frank Carbon, regional director for NIR of the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry, who met with Cusi and Presidential Assistant for the Visayas Michael Dino last October 1 in Bacolod.
“We will discuss the problem of Ceneco on the non-approval of Energy Regulatory Commission of their 2011-2016 capital expenditures (capex) which runs up to billions of pesos,” Carbon said.
He added that because of the non-approval, Ceneco has to deal with brownouts due to dilapidated transmission lines and substations that brings power to its service areas in the cities of Bacolod, Bago, Talisay, Silay, and the municipalities of Murcia and Salvador Benedicto.
“If you look at those substations, they are already overloaded and this sometimes results to explosion of transformers. So this is happening because they have no capitalization,” Carbon said.
Once the problem is addressed, it would be favorable to the business sector because investors will have the confidence on the stability and reliability of the power situation, he added.
He also revealed that Cusi may bring representatives from the Energy Regulatory Commission and the National Electrification Administration.
Carbon said Cusi is also asking to meet representatives from Negros Occidental Electric Cooperative, Northern Negros Electric Cooperative, and Negros Oriental Electric Cooperatives 1 and 2.
“We are looking forward to the approval of the Ceneco’s (capex) so that rehabilitation of transmission and sub stations could be started in January next year,” he added.