By Lenie Lectura - July 22, 2019
THE Palawan Electric Co. (Paleco)
cited over the weekend improvements in electricity services to its customers,
particularly a significant reduction in the duration and frequency of power
interruption.
“If we compare the Saidi [System
Average Interruption Duration Index] and the Saifi [System Average
Interruption Frequency Index] between the time when President Duterte cautioned
[on] the privatization of power distribution services in Palawan and what we have
now, interruption frequency and duration experienced by our customers have
significantly reduced by at least 50 percent,” Paleco Chairman Jeffrey Y.
Tan-Endriga said.
Among the measures undertaken by
Paleco include massive clearing of trees in the entire coverage area;
continuous conduct of regular thermal scanning of power substation equipment
and distribution lines to prevent hot spots; transformer load management;
massive inspection, resealing, modification and change of defective big load
meters and instrument transformers; meter clustering of residential consumers
along squatter, coastal and other areas with suspected pilferages, coordination
of protective devices, improvement of grounding system and capacitating of
technical personnel on distribution maintenance and substation operation.
“For Paleco, these unplanned power
interruptions are caused mostly by heavy vegetation and wildlife incursion
attributed to the vast forest cover of Palawan,” he said, explaining that the
“stringent” rules of DENR and local government policies in Palawan limit Paleco
from conducting “massive line clearing to protect the integrity of the lines.”
Tan-Endriga said at least 40 percent
of the total power interruptions recorded from January 2019 to May 2019 are
attributed to power plants which may be caused by abnormal engine tripping,
old-aged generating units, and uncoordinated protection equipment settings
between new power players, National Power Corp. and Paleco.
The electric cooperative is also
working on several key projects to improve its services. These include
installation of additional substations and improve the reliability of power
delivery to consumers in far-flung areas.
Paleco will also install a
Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (Scada) to ensure real-time monitoring
and faster response to required line operations.
“It is becoming clear now that power
outages are not just coming from the distribution side. The transmission and
generation are also contributory to such issues,” Tan-Endriga noted.
The lack of funds, he said, also
caused delays in the improvement of Paleco’s services since its capital
expenditure (capex) program was only approved in November 2018.
“Paleco is moving toward system’s
loss reduction and improvement of reliability indices [Saidi and Saifi] which
are indicators of EC’s technical performance. With the approval of our capex,
we can now start the much-needed facility improvements which will lead to the
improvement of electricity services in our franchise area. We hope to further
reduce our system interruption duration and frequencies by at least 50 percent
from the previous year as what we have already achieved in the first semester
of 2019,” Tan-Endriga said.
Paleco is strongly opposing the
renewed interest of MORE Reedbank Corp. to take over its distribution franchise
as this will not immediately solve the power supply situation in the island of
Palawan. “We believe that [takeover] is not justified. Paleco has been doing
its best to improve its services particularly its reliability indices,” he
said.
To date, Paleco has maintained its
outstanding classification based on National Electrification
Administration’s performance standards. It was categorized as
an “AA” Electric Cooperative, reflecting exemplary performance under the
operational and financial parameters of the agency.
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