MORE Power, PECO point fingers on brownouts

By Emme Rose Santiagudo and Francis Allan L. Angelo

Panay Electric Company (PECO), the former power distributor in Iloilo City, called as “unacceptable” the brownouts in the city amid the summer and coronavirus disease (COVID-19) crisis.

But rival firm MORE Power said PECO is to be blamed for the city’s woes.

In a virtual press briefing on Wednesday, PECO blamed rival firm MORE Power for outages.

“There have been massive power interruptions. Clearly, this black-out is unacceptable in the middle of the global crisis. Sa gitna ng pandemya at init ng araw kailangan tiisin ng mga consumers sa Iloilo dahil sa mahabang power outages na naging regular occurrence na. It’s a compelling argument for Supreme Court (SC) to decide [on the pending case] in favor of PECO,” PECO legal counsel Estrella Elamparo said.

Elamparo said the power interruptions occurred after MORE Power took over as the distribution utility of the city.

“The mandate of the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) is to ensure that the public interest is protected, paano natin masasabi na napoprotekhan ito kon maya-maya nagkakaroon ng power outages,” she stressed.

 

BARKING UP THE WRONG TREE

MORE Power president Roel Castro said PECO is barking up the wrong tree since the latter is to be blamed for the outages in the first place.

“PECO’s facilities were bulok (rotten) and we are correcting it through our three-year

modernization program. It is not an overnight thing. As they say, it’s darkest before dawn.

But we will reach that dawn once we banish PECO’s rotten system,” MORE Power president Roel Castro said.

Castro said the brownouts, either announced or otherwise, are mainly due to the following:

 

-Corrections and repairs we promised to the consumers, things PECO deliberately glossed over because they never had the courage to be honest to their consumers and to do the right thing.

-Despite their claims of investing billions of pesos, the truth is PECO’s distribution system is dilapidated and outdated. We are correcting this by replacing and repairing these facilities and equipment as further delays will result in massive and prolonged brownouts.

-PECO lost its franchise because Congress determined that it was remiss of its responsibility which caused great inconvenience to consumers. That is on record and even Iloilo City residents called for their ouster.

Castro said “MORE Power will not be deterred by PECO’s black propaganda because the people know that they (PECO) are the root cause of the problems that consumers have been suffering for decades already, and we are now correcting those defects as we promised Congress and the Ilonggos.”

 

ALTERNATIVE

According to Marcelo Cacho administrative manager of PECO, MORE Power should have realized that this is the worst time to replace the facilities as the city is in the middle of pandemic and at the peak of summer.

“We are in the middle of pandemic, we’re on the peak of summer, this is the worst time to replace facilities,” he said on Wednesday.

Cacho said that there could be other ways to avert power outages and minimize the number of hours needed for maintenance works.

“There are also other ways that we could avert the power outages. A sample would be bringing mobile substation to augment the current distribution capacity that we have. You don’t want to do your maintenance for six hours, that will affect consumers. You have to pick the times when you do your necessary outbreaks. You don’t want to do this all at once because you will also be subjecting the consumers to all at once major outages,” he stressed.

Cacho also answered the allegations of MORE Power that the facilities of PECO were dilapidated and outdated.

As a distribution utility for almost a century, Cacho said that PECO has been continuously upgrading its lines and facilities to accommodate the needs of the bustling city.

“Every month, we are doing regular rehabilitation because as a utility that has existed for over a long time, we keep on upgrading our facilities, this is a normal cycle. In the 1980’s, we have changed distribution models and upgraded to a higher voltage. We have been continuously upgrading every month since then,” Cacho said.

Elamparo emphasized that MORE Power could have put up its own distribution system if PECO’s facilities were dilapidated.

 

“Kon totoo sa paningin nila na dilapidated ang facilities na ito they always have the option to put up their own distribution system. Eto ginagawang excuse ni MORE kasi hindi nila kayang patakbuhin ang electricity sa Iloilo,” she said.

 

MODERNIZATION

Part of MORE Power’s 3-year modernization project is to install a looping system of the 69-kilovolt sub-transmission facility to provide backup power supply whenever the firm conducts preventive maintenance and repairs of the substations around the city.

In electrical engineering, a loop system rings through the service area and returns to the

original point. The loop is usually tied to an alternate power source. By placing switches in strategic locations, the utility can supply power to the customer from either direction and minimizes outages.

 

So far, MORE Power has completed the repairs of the Jaro and City Proper substations in May while the remaining three substations will undergo the same works in the coming weeks.

Castro said they will expand the capacity of power transformers in the following substations:

 

-additional 50 megavolt-ampere (MVA) in Mandurriao, which is the newest growth area in the city;

-upgrade the Jaro substation from 10MVA to 30MVA;

– upgrade the City Proper substation from 20MVA to 50MVA.

 

Apart from correcting the load demand of each substation, the improvements will also prepare the distribution system for the growing demand for power in the next 5 to 10 years.

MORE Power is also expecting the arrival of a 10MVA mobile substation which will be used durin the repairs and maintenance of stationary substations and feeders.

Also part of the modernization program is the installation of the Supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) which was never introduced by the previous distribution utility.

SCADA is an industrial control system used in many modern industries like energy to organize multiple technologies that allows to process, gather and monitor data at the same time to send instructions to those points that transmit data.

Castro said SCADA will help them monitor faults in the distribution system for faster response and avert widespread brownouts.

“If we have that system, we can automatically identify the fault and isolate an area where the outage will occur with the click of the computer mouse. That will spare the rest of the distribution system from massive and cascading brownouts. SCADA will only be useful if we improve the old distribution system to the loop system because we will have automated switches, not the outdated mechanical ones used by the previous management,” he added.