‘Service not corporate war’

By Francis Allan L. Angelo

While Iloilo City consumers await the outcome of the legal battle between MORE Power and rival Panay Electric Co. (PECO) before the Supreme Court, the Enrique Razon-led distributor said that their main objective was not to wage corporate war but to bring better services to Ilonggos.

In a statement, MORE Power President Roel Castro said they only responded to the clamors of consumers for better services.

MORE Power took over the electricity distribution services in Iloilo City in February 2020 after securing a congressional franchise via Republic Act 11212 which was signed into law by Pres. Rodrigo Duterte on Feb 14, 2019.

PECO quickly questioned the law before the Regional Trial Court in Mandaluyong which sided with the 96-year-old firm by declaring portions of RA 11212 as unconstitutional. The issue is now pending with the SC which is expected to render a decision this week.

Castro said the rift between the two power firms should not be viewed as a corporate war, underscoring the fact that MORE Power has nothing to do with PECO.

“We are here in Iloilo City not because we are after PECO; we are here to redress the sorry state of power facilities here and address complaints of poor service and customer care and high electricity rates,” he added.

He said that MORE Power extended a “reconciliatory hand” to PECO but was rebuffed.

“I understand that it is difficult to accept the fact for PECO management to lose its franchise after nearly 100 years in the business but, as a public utility, it should put the interest of consumers and Iloilo City above everything else. We respect and understand that what they’re going through is painful, but it’s time we set aside our differences for the benefit of the Iloilo City power consumers.”

Castro noted that Congress did not renew the legislative franchise of PECO due to numerous complaints about its service, including pole fires, brownouts caused by dilapidated facilities, and overbilling.

The MORE Power executive also said that the Energy Regulatory Commission had revoked PECO’s certificate of public convenience and necessity.

“In addition, the Iloilo City government did not issue PECO a business permit, clear proof that it no longer has the legal capacity to operate a power distribution business,” Castro said.

 

‘FALSE CLAIMS’

PECO, on the other hand, said the claims of MORE Power against PECO’s old and dilapidated distribution system is a misrepresentation of its “inexcusable inefficiency” since it took over the city’s power distribution.

“This is nothing but an unsubstantiated and convenient excuse by an entity whose incompetence and inexperience to operate a distribution system is now revealed in the face of recurring power outages in Iloilo City,” Atty. Estrella C. Elamparo, PECO’s legal counsel lamented.

“To say that PECO’s distribution system is old and dilapidated reeks of desperation to conceal the fact that MORE is completely incompetent and inexperienced to operate a distribution system and provide reliable electricity to the people of Iloilo City,” she stressed.

Citing MORE Power’s own data as posted in its Facebook page, PECO recounted in a filing with the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) the “326 hours of power outages” that Iloilo City consumers had already suffered from February 29 to June 22 this year, a period when MORE was already the power service provider in the area.

It was further stated in the filing that “if the period to be considered is extended until 16 July 2020, MORE would already have accumulated a shocking total of 412 hours of outages over a period of only five months.”

She further said that under MORE Power management, the city’s distribution system experienced several feeder level power outages, which evinces a major degradation in the service of power distribution in Iloilo City.

MORE Power slammed PECO for allegedly inflating the power outage data in Iloilo City before the Energy Regulatory Commission.

“As PECO desperately wanted MORE to look bad, it manipulated the numbers to artificially inflate the figures. PECO not only double counted, it counted one brown-out period 16 times. PECO included in its count two brownouts that did not happen. PECO also counted a longer period than the actual period of outage,” MORE Power said.

“PECO engaged in multiple counting, which was not in accordance with the mandated method of recording interruptions under ERC Resolution No. 12, Series of 2008 (A Resolution Adopting the Guidelines for the Monitoring of Reliability Standards for Distribution Utilities),” it said.

“From February 29 to July 16, there were only 182.13 hours of power interruptions and not 412.20 hours as alleged by PECO. PECO inflated the figures by counting multiple times a single interruption event,” MORE Power said.

“These scheduled outages were necessary because of the need for urgent maintenance work on various aspects of the dilapidated distribution system that MORE took over from PECO,” it added.

 

APPALLING SITUATION

Engr. Rey Jaleco, head of MORE Power project development and management, described the power situation in Iloilo City as “nothing short of appalling” when MORE Power took over in late February this year.

“MORE Power really has to prioritize the rehabilitation of PECO’s facilities in all aspects of the distribution system because not only are they outmoded, they are dangerously substandard,” Jaleco said.

“You name the problem and PECO’s facilities have it. From over-heating distribution elements to rotten and dilapidated poles and cross arms, low sagging and long spanning primary lines, aging/defective kWh (kilowatt-hour) meters, dilapidated pole of main feeder backbone at feeders, non-operational breakers, downed insulators, undersized distribution lines, oil-leaking and overloading transformers, unmaintained batteries and gases-build up at the substations,” he added, emphasizing that these are all “ingredients for disaster.”

“This was why MORE Power had to act fast when it took over the distribution utility of the city in February. We had to salvage what was still salvageable from the neglected facilities that MORE Power inherited from PECO while simultaneously introducing technology upgrades,” he explained.

Jaleco said the 13-hour preventive maintenance of sub-stations was the only option for MORE Power to avoid longer and more disastrous outages.

 

STANDARD COMPLIANCE

Jaleco further explained that under ERC’s Resolution No. 17 Series of 2011 (Resolution Adopting The Investor-Owned Electric Distribution Utility Planning Manual), distribution facilities must have sufficient capacity to meet the growing demand of the customers.

Substations, lines and distribution transformers must not be overloaded. Ideally, substation percent loading should not exceed 70% of its maximum rated capacity, and lines and distribution transformers should not be overloaded.

“But PECO facilities we inherited clearly showed overloading. The 20 MVA (megavolt-ampere) sub-station in the City Proper was operating at 110%; the 10 MVA in Jaro, at 96%; the 25 MVA in Mandurriao, at 109%; and the 25 MVA in Molo, at 111%. Needless to say, this would eventually lead to the fast deterioration of power transformers and all operating electrical equipment and to high risk of equipment breakdowns/explosions, as well as damage to distribution transformers and protracted power interruptions,” Jaleco said.

Under this manual, regular preventive maintenance schedule shall be conducted to prevent unnecessary breakdown and maintain the good operating performance of electrical equipment.

“When MORE Power took over, the existing facilities had oil leaks at the 10 MVA Jaro Substation and the 20 MVA City Proper Substation. The workplaces in those five substations were all filthy as there was apparently a lack of maintenance done, or none at all, in those substations,” he said.

Jaleco added that under the same manual, “The Distribution Utility is responsible for designing, installing, and maintaining a distribution protection system that will ensure the timely disconnection of faulted facilities and Equipment.”

“So ideally, all substation facilities must be equipped with proper protection at the high side and low side of the power transformer, and feeders must be equipped with circuit breakers to disconnect timely faults, but the existing Molo substation during our takeover had inactive low side protection at 13.8 kV CB. This would have led to the damage of the power transformer, through which high value of fault current passes,” he noted.

Jaleco said the same manual provides that the utility distributor should be responsible for the design, installation, operation and maintenance of the metering system and its component parts to ensure the integrity and accuracy of the metering system, a provision which was also violated by PECO.

He said that existing facilities before the takeover did not follow the standards in metering installation and thus violated regulatory requirement. Instead, outdated/phased-out meter installation and rampant defective and aged electro-mechanical meters were common discoveries during the takeover.

 

EARLY ACCOMPLISHMENTS

In a recent accomplishment report to the Iloilo City Council, MORE Power president Roel Castro said that in so short a time that MORE Power has been in operation, it was able to replace a total of 175 “rotten poles” as of Aug 31, 2020.

He said MORE was also able replace and update 249 transformers stressing that, “If you will count the number of days that we have been operating, we have been replacing more than one transformer per day on the average.”

Castro said the replacements included 57 units of 100kVA (kilovolt-ampere) transformers, 95 units of 75kVA, 62 units of 50 kVA, 28 units of 37.5 kVa, and 7 units of 25 kVA.

MORE Power also corrected a significant number of hotspots or overheating sections comprising of air-break switch, disconnect cutout, disconnect switch, primary bushing, primary connector, secondary connector, primary jumper, sectionalizing cutout, line cutout, fuse cutout, pole grounding connector, and hotline clamps.

As of Aug 31, MORE Power was able to energize total of 1,296 new connections and currently has a total of 5,827 ongoing applications under “Project Valeria,” which seeks to encourage owners of illegal connections to apply for legitimate connections.

The firm was also able to attend to an accumulated total of 115,059 “customer care responses” through its customer welfare desk, helpline, and social media platforms.

“We really need to fix things, and that is what we are actually doing 24/7. Rest assured, we are initiating proactive programs and policies attuned to the needs of our time to better serve the people of Iloilo. And this is propelled by our avowed mission to steer our city closer towards sustained prosperity and security through a sustainable energy service,” Castro said.