VECO to upgrade system to prevent power outages

The Visayan Electric Company will come up with a new system as part of its upgrading measure to prevent power outages during the holding of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations Summit in December.

As a result, several areas of Cebu City that are served by VECO's Ermita susbtation will experience brownout on Sunday starting at 5:00 a.m. until 5:00 p.m.

Chris Fernandez, VECO's system operations department manager, said the Ermita substation that serves barangay Labangon, downtown area and a portion of barangay Inayawan would be affected by the 12-hour brownout.

The power firm is also acquiring new transformers for its substations located in Ermita, barangay Lahug and Cabancalan, Mandaue City.

Yesterday, officials of power firms in Cebu met to assess their preparations and ensure that Cebu would be brownout-free during the ASEAN Summit from December 11 to 14.

Crispin Lamayan, the National Transmission Corporation's assistant vice president for system operations, has admitted that power supply is really low at night because of huge demand, but the National Power Corporation has promised to increase the power system of the Visayas Grid, Cebu's main power source, especially during the summit.

Lamayan said part of the contingency measures to ensure additional power reserves for a blackout-free summit are the generator sets on standby at the Visayas Power Grid, the power barges docked at the Mactan Channel, and the generator sets of major hotels that are the billeting and summit venues.

He also said he has set a meeting with representatives from the power sector to get their cooperation to warrant a stable power supply during the critical period of the summit.

On the other hand, Fernandez said VECO has linemen on standby starting November 15 until December 10, which is considered as the pre-summit period, adding that they are planning to beef up the number of the crew as the summit proper takes place.

By early next year, Fernandez said VECO would have three independent power producers as they plan to draft a memorandum of agreement with two IPPs for power source.

Lamayan also said the declaration of holiday from December 11 to 14 will increase power reserves but that there will be no reduction of power reserves during the peak period in Lapu-Lapu City as the Mactan Export Processing Zone has been exempted from the holiday set by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

He added that the declaration of holiday in the cities of Cebu, Mandaue and Lapu-Lapu is advantageous as it will lessen electricity demand and ensure enough power reserves during the summit. - Wenna A. Berondo/LPM