By:
Nestor P. Burgos Jr. 12:03 AM October 4th, 2016
ILOILO CITY—Residents
and businessmen have called on Boracay Island’s power distributor to address
outages that have been hitting the island-resort in Aklan province in the past
few months.
They said cases of
power interruption, some lasting a few minutes while others up to several
hours, have inconvenienced residents and operators of small shops and inns in
the past few months, resulting in losses.
While big resorts and
hotels have power generator sets, most houses and businesses rely on
electricity supplied by the Aklan Electric Cooperative (Akelco), said Dionisio
Salme, president of the Boracay Foundation Inc., a group of business operators
on the island.
Akelco is the sole
power distributor in 17 Aklan towns and in Libertad and Pandan towns in nearby
Antique province.
Salme said the
situation has improved in recent days, but using power generators, he noted,
would mean additional costs for businesses and residents.
Alexis Regalado, Akelco
general manager, said a 19-hour outage from Sept. 24 to 25 was due to
preventive maintenance activities of the National Grid Corporation of the
Philippines (NGCP), the transfer of Akelco lines in some areas and tripping in
some power lines on the island.
Shorter outages were
caused by strong winds brought about by the habagat (southwest monsoon) season,
Regalado said.
He said tree branches
touching power lines also triggered power interruptions.
“We are already
addressing the problems and have started clearing operations of tree branches
near our lines,” Regalado told the Inquirer.
He said they are also
planning to install more insulators and upgrade their system to minimize cases
of power interruption.
Consumers have turned
to social media, through the Facebook group page, “Concerned Akelco Consumers,”
to press the electric cooperative and concerned government agencies to address
the problem.
The town council of
Malay and the Aklan provincial board have separately summoned representatives
of Akelco, NGCP and the Department of Energy to discuss the problem and to
provide solutions.
Boracay Island
experienced prolonged outages in the early 2000s due to lack of supply and
problems in transmission and distribution.
Electricity is supplied
to Boracay through submarine cables from the Aklan mainland.
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