Cebu to have more brownouts

By Justin K. Vestil

Wednesday, December 18, 2013

CEBU -- Some areas in Metro Cebu will continue to experience rotational brownouts after a Toledo City-based power plant bogged down last Monday night.

Despite the 120 to 190-megawatt (MW) power feeds from the Luzon grid since Sunday, rotational brownouts will continue in Cebu after one of the engines of the Cebu Energy Development Corp. (CEDC) power plant in Toledo City reportedly tripped off Tuesday afternoon.

But an official of the Toledo City-based thermal power plant said they still have two other engines operating.

Maria Theresa Sederiosa, corporate communications manager of the Visayan Electric Co. (Veco), said the CEDC plant in Toledo City shares about 79 MW with them.

They are still coordinating with officials from CEDC on when their power plant will resume operations, she said.

Sederiosa said they urge their consumers to brace themselves for more rotational brownouts, which started last night.

Based on Veco’s daily power advisory, some barangays in the cities of Cebu and Mandaue and the northern towns of Consolacion and Liloan will have brownouts for one to two hours.

Sederiosa urged some of their consumers to save energy considering how much they are losing due to the effects of Typhoon Yolanda (Haiyan) on the Cebu-Negros-Panay grid.

She urged consumers to use their appliances on hours when the demand for electricity is less rather than during peak hours.

“If 10,000 out of our 350,000 customers will start conserving electricity, we can save about 20 megawatts a day,” Sederiosa said. A CEDC representative said that one of the plant’s three engines had bogged down after encountering mechanical trouble.

Mae Catherine Melchor, CEDC external affairs officer, said their Unit-1 engine, which produces about 82 MW daily, shut down at 8:45 p.m. last Monday.

But Melchor assured that the plant continues to produce electricity up to 164 MW as two engines are still operating.

She said CEDC’s sister companies, Toledo Power Co. (TPC)’s Sangi and Carmen Plants, are still in operation and are providing a combined 61 MW daily.

Melchor said the bogged down engine will operate before Christmas Eve. (Sun.Star Cebu)   source

Published in the Sun.Star Cebu newspaper on December 18, 2013.