Stable power supply on poll day assured

CEBU, Philippines - Power officials in Cebu yesterday assured the Cebuanos of an efficient and stable power supply before, during and even after the May 13 national and local elections.

Theresa Sederiosa, communications manager of the Visayas Electric Company (VECO) said during the Kapihan sa PIA that their contingency plan on the election period is already in place since last year.

VECO, the second largest power distributor in the country with over 380,000 consumers said that they have 60 substations in their franchise area and they assured that there will be no power interruptions especially in schools being used as poll precincts.

Engr. Lowell Belcina, resident manager of the Cebu Electric Cooperative, said that as mandated, they will be providing a 24/7 reliable power service for the said political exercise.

CEBECO’s franchise area is from Carcar to Barili (CEBECO I), from Danao City to Tuburan (CEBECO II) and from Asturias to Aloguinsan (CEBECO III). It has around 100,000 power consumers.

Belcina, however, said that they are still scheduled to meet with the different representatives from local Comelec to determine which schools that are within their franchise area are being used of polling precincts.

The polling precincts have to be determined so they can check if these schools have proper safety measures to ensure that there will be no power outage resulting from overloading.

Antonio Labios, Regional Director of the Department of Energy-7 said that currently the Cebu-Negros-Panay grid has a total power generation of 1,713 megawatts.

The entire grid has a total demand of 1,328 megawatts during peak time or an excess capacity of between 300 megawatt to 400 megawatt.

Labios said that since election day is a holiday, it is expected that power demand will be lower.

During the 2010 national and local election, no power interruption was reported.— (FREEMAN)