BACOLOD CITY – Power supply in the southeastern part of the city hit by outages since Aug. 21 is expected to normalize by Aug. 27 as replacement power transformers were being installed in the Alijis substation over the weekend.
In a statement Saturday night, Mayor Alfredo Abelardo Benitez acknowledged the efforts of the new distribution utility, Negros Electric and Power Corp. (Negros Power), to normalize power supply in feeders covered by the Alijis substation.
“They are targeting to begin restoring service by Monday night at the earliest or Tuesday morning at the latest, with full restoration of the Alijis feeders expected by Sept. 2,” he added.
Benitez said he advised Negros Power to submit a transition plan and timeline to the City Council for transparency and progress monitoring.
Since Wednesday night, some 47,000 registered consumer-households, mainly in Barangays Alijis, Mansilingan, Felisa and Handumanan, have been experiencing brownouts after the 30/37 megavolt amperes (MVA) Alijis substation power transformer of the Central Negros Electric Cooperative (Ceneco) broke down due to a significant oil leak.
The power disruption also grounded to a halt the operation of at least four pumping stations of PrimeWater Bacolod City, causing water shortage as well in brownout-hit areas.
In a press conference, Negros Power president and chief executive officer Roel Castro said they pulled out the 30 MVA power transformer from the Alijis substation to replace it with the new 18 MVA unit together with the 10 MVA mobile substation, which arrived in Bacolod earlier in the afternoon, loaned by sister company MORE Power Iloilo.
“By Tuesday, we should be back to normal,” he added.
After the 13-year-old transformer suffered irreparable damage, the new power company connected the Alijis substation to nearby substations and feeders to provide 32 megawatts of temporary supply to the affected areas.
While the reconfigurations are ongoing, Negros Power is implementing rotational brownouts and manual load dropping that also affect feeders in other areas of Bacolod and adjacent localities.
During a meeting with Councilor Claudio Jesus Puentevella and officials of PrimeWater Saturday afternoon, Castro said they came up with solutions to the water supply problem, one of which is Negros Power providing two 50 KVA power generators to be used in the two pumping stations.
“The peculiarity here in Bacolod is, ‘no power, also means no water’. We’re also taking responsibility with that. We are the reason why the pumping stations are affected so we are helping PrimeWater on that part as well. Water supply should be normalized by tomorrow (Sunday) or even by today (Saturday),” he added.
In a social media post, PrimeWater said together with joint venture partner, Bacolod City Water District, they have delivered water supply to some brownout-hit areas starting Friday.
The massive brownouts came weeks after Negros Power obtained a franchise to distribute power supply to Bacolod and five other local government units in central Negros, following its joint venture agreement with Ceneco last year.
It is set to formally takeover the operations of Ceneco next month once it is granted the certificate of public convenience and necessity by the Energy Regulatory Commission. (PNA)
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