Cebu to suffer four-day power shortage

CEBU, Philippines - A power shortage is expected to hit Cebu starting tomorrow until Thursday.

Based on the National Grid Power Corporation's Weekly Power Outlook (May 23 to May 29), as posted in its website, Cebu will have a zero reserve for four days.

Yesterday, Cebu had a net power reserve of  71mw and will have an expected power reserve of 119 mw today.

A source who requested not to be named said that one of the two units of Panay Energy Development Corporation will undergo emergency shutdown by Monday.

Theresa Sederiosa, spokesperson of the Visayan Electric Company, said that as of yesterday, they have not received any advisory from NGCP about the matter.

"Wala pa. Most likely Monday morning na," Sederiosa said.

The Freeman tried to contact Department of Energy-7 regional director Antonio Labios for confirmation on the four-day power shortage as well as the emergency shutdown of the  power plant but he was not available as of press time.

Sederiosa, however, said that just like in the past week, they will call their Interruptible Load Program (ILP) participants for automatic load shedding during peak hours.

With the impending power shortage, VECO is encouraging its customers to practice energy conservation to lower the peak demand.

Last week, the Cebu-Negros-Panay grid or the Visayas grid lost about 200mw but despite of this, VECO has not resorted to implementing a rotational brownout.

ILP participants also opted to using their respective generators instead of directly getting power from VECO.

NGCP spokesperson Betty Martinez said that NGCP will do its best to temper power shortage.

During last week's power shortage, NGCP was able to provide additional power to the CNP grid from Luzon.

Even with Cebu undergoing a four-day zero power reserve, the Visayas grid will not experience power shortage based on NGCP's Weekly Outlook (May 23 to 29) for Visayas.

Data shows that the CNP grid had a reserve of 176mw as of yesterday and 228mw today. The reserve will be down to 94mw on May 26, 82mw on May 27, 90mw on Wednesday and 95mw on May 29.

The data added that Negros had zero reserve since yesterday until Thursday while Leyte-Samar has no reserve since Friday until Thursday.

Bohol has only 1 mw to 2 mw power reserve on the same period.

Panay, on the other hand, will not experience power shortage as it has power reserve ranges from 93mw to 108mw over the same period.

Cebu, Leyte-Samar, Bohol, Panay and Negros comprise the CNP grid, which experienced a four-day power supply shortage last week after three power plants connecting the grid underwent emergency shutdown. — NSA (FREEMAN)