Power firm assures ample, stable supply for Dinagyang

By John Noel E. Herrera and Joseph B.A. Marzan

Iloilo City’s main power distributor, MORE Electric and Power Corp, assured ample and stable supply as Dinagyang Festival returns to the face-to-face setup.

MORE Power said it anticipates a surge in demand for electricity with the numerous main and side events, particularly all-night parties and food festivals in key city centers.

Engr. Bailey Del Castillo, MORE Power’s senior assistant vice president of network operations, said in an interview that they prepared a “Dinagyang Contingency Plan” for the festival.

“We are very confident right now with our preparations and the existing scenarios that all power plants are online and the substation is intact as we recently conducted preventive maintenance so we are ready for the upcoming Dinagyang,” Del Castillo told Daily Guardian.

He also assured that MORE Power’s substations are in top condition despite the projected surge in demand.

“Our supply is very stable and we also have enough capacity, so normally yung loading talaga, especially during summer time umaabot tayo jan sa 80 percent, but as of now, the loading of our substation is only at 60 percent,” he added.

Supply is also the least of their concerns as suppliers are in tip-top condition.

“We actually have enough breathing space [or] capacity that can supply households and the additional load that we expect during the [Dinagyang Festival] events. Power from the grid for now is stable, so we hope that this will continue, knowing that most of the plants are online that’s why we have sufficient supply from the national grid,” he added.

Del Castillo said they only hope that there will be no problems on the part of the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) which operates the lines connecting power plants to the power distributors like MORE Power.

“The only problem that will happen is that sometimes we are doing manual load dropping when there are plants that are doing maintenance, but right now, since all the (power) plants in Panay are online, so, we are confident that the supply distribution is enough,” he added.

Del Castillo said the “Dinagyang Contingency Plan” ensures that they can immediately respond to any problem that might occur during the two-day celebration.

“We have now our Dinagyang Contingency Plan and we started the contingency plan preparation last week because we know that the preparation is very important and we are targeting to finish it Thursday (today),” Del Castillo said.

“The preventive measures, the thermal scanning ng ating mga feeders which will serve doon sa mga staging sites and judging areas and some areas in Megaworld with so many events going on over the weekend, they are all ready,” he added.

MORE Power also installed additional transformers in strategic areas and conducted line clearing, and checking of the system capacity of lines and distribution transformers serving different areas, including the Food Festival area.

The firm will also deploy several teams to different strategic areas from Jan 21 to 22, 2023 to immediately respond to possible problems that might happen during the celebration.

“We have also our deployment plan. The deployment plan will be from Jan 21 to 22, 2023. As early as 7 a.m. we will already deploy line teams, line construction teams and response teams on those strategic areas just in case, hindi natin talaga maiwasan na merong outages na out of control, then we have our team to immediately respond on the area para madali na lang maayos,” Del Castillo said.