DoE sees better power service in Iloilo

April 7, 2020 01:30 AM
https://tribune.net.ph/index.php/2020/04/07/doe-sees-better-power-service-in-iloilo/

The Department of Energy (DoE) is eyeing electricity services to improve in Iloilo City with the new distribution utility More Electric and Power Corporation (MORE Power) starting the rollout of its P1.8-billion modernization program for Iloilo City’s aged power distribution system.

Energy Undersecretary Felix William Fuentebella said the DoE is hopeful that Ilonggos will finally get better service from MORE Power after it replaced Panay Electric Corporation (PECO), which had operated the city’s electricity distribution system for 96 years.

“We are hopeful but we have to see the improvements for its franchise area,” Fuentebella said.

Mario Marasigan, director of the DoE’s Electric Power Industry Management Bureau, said the department will conduct validation works on the modernization program of Iloilo City’s electricity distribution system as soon as the enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) is lifted.

MORE Power president and chief operating officer Roel Castro assured Iloilo City Mayor Jerry Treñas and the city’s residents that the company will work on providing a reliable, safe and cheap supply of electricity.

Castro said the company will start with the replacement of all electric meters in the city with new meters that have been approved and had passed the standards of the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) as a means of reducing the technical systems losses paid for by Ilonggos in their monthly bill.

As of 2019, ERC records showed that PECO had recorded systems losses, or the amount of electricity lost in the inefficient distribution because of faulty lines and equipment or from pilferage, of 9.03 percent or way above the 6.5 percent cap that could be charged to customers set by the ERC for privately-owned distribution utilities.

According to Castro, a technical scanning conducted by MORE Power with MIESCOR, the engineering company of MERALCO and a sister company of PECO, showed an extensive array of equipment and distribution lines that need to be replaced to improve safety, reliability and efficiency of the distribution system.

These include rotten poles, undersized transformers, undersized conductors, old and dilapidated substations that were part of PECO’s former facilities. Also among the equipment that need to be replaced or rehabilitated are 119 transformers all over the city that were found to be abnormally overheating, an indication of overloading.

“PECO caused its own demise with its failure to reinvest its earnings from the nine decades of payments made by Ilonggos to improving Iloilo City’s distribution system. Its failure to do so made Ilonggos complain of frequent outages, high power rates and unsafe PECO lines and poles,” Castro said.

MORE Power will be proactive in ensuring Ilonggos will have safe, reliable and cheaper electricity supply with its investment in modern distribution lines and equipment to replace the aged system in place, he added.

In a related development, Treñas asked Ilonggos to now recognize MORE Power as the city’s sole legitimate power distribution utility with the proper operating permit from the ERC and the franchise from Congress.

Treñas pointed out that PECO has lost its operating permit and franchise and should keep its objections to MORE Power’s formal assumption of its role as the city’s new distribution utility to the proper forums and not through a media war with its rival.