Consumers in Iloilo City are promised to experience fewer hours of power outages during weekends beginning next month.
“We understand the inconvenience that our consumers have faced with 12 to 13-hour power interruptions almost every week. That’s why, starting in July 2024, we will shorten the duration of scheduled power interruptions,” More Electric and Power Corporation (MORE Power) vice president for the network development and operations group engineer Bernard Bailey Del Castillo said on Friday, June 28.
In a statement, Del Castillo said brownouts during weekends are for replacing rotten poles since when they took over in 2020, almost all electrical facilities in the city were either defective or obsolete.
From 12 to 13 hours, brownouts will be reduced to eight hours, the maximum hours the utility needs to complete its rehabilitation works.
However, it said not all scheduled interruptions are initiated by the company. Some of these outages were made as requested by the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP).
“MORE Power takes advantage of NGCP’s scheduled maintenance works to avoid wasting the long hours of no power in its franchise area,” it added.
Consumers experienced 12-hour scheduled power interruption on March 27, April 21, and 11 hours on May 26 as the power utility conducted cleaning operations of its 69-kilovolt lines ahead of the rainy season.
In four years, the utility has replaced and installed over 7,000 poles, installed 45 automatic circuit reclosers and 22 load break switches to isolate and immediately restore power during momentary faults, and purchased modern testing equipment.
Further, they target to replace and reconductor with tree wire about 50 circuit kilometers of lines by the end of this month since they started in 2022.
The tree wires are insulated primary lines designed to prevent power interruptions caused by animal intrusion and vegetation.
MORE Power is currently working on the underground distribution system along Iloilo City’s Calle Real.Perla Lena/PNA
