READY FOR BROWNOUTS

The night skyline of Mactan Island with lights glowing in the compound and wharf of General Milling Corporation as viewed from the Mandaue-Mactan Bridge in this photo taken on April 8, 2017.
CDN PHOTO/JUNJIE MENDOZA

Power outages on Mactan Island

As residents of Mactan Island brace themselves for a week of power interruptions, starting with an eight-hour blackout beginning at 6 a.m. today, local officials and tourism-related establishments assured they are ready for the power outages.

Mactan hotels and resorts, the main driver of the island’s economy, said business will go on as usual despite the power interruptions that will last until April 15, Black Saturday, as they have prepared generators to meet their power needs.

Elsewhere on the island, residents have prepared flashlights, candles, emergency lamps and a stock of nonperishable goods, having been informed by both the Mactan Electric Company (Meco) and in many instances by barangay officials, who have gone house-to-house, that they will have a minimum of eight-hour blackout today and on Black Saturday and at least two hours of rotated brownouts from Monday to Friday.

Around 80 hotels and resorts, 150 restaurants and other commercial establishments were seen to be affected by the disruption to give way to preparatory works for a new 100-megavolt-ampere (MVA) transformer the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) is going to activate by July this year.

An estimated 80,000 households in Lapu-Lapu City and Cordova town within the franchise area of Meco will also experience power interruptions, except those that have their own generator sets.

The Mactan Export Processing Zone (MEPZ) 1 is also exempted from the interruption since it gets power from East Asia Utilities Corporation (EAUC).

According to Meco General Manager Gilbert Pagobo, the island is now consuming 140 megawatts (MW) at its peak, with 60 MW as reserve.

But the 200-MW capacity will be augmented with another 100 MW to meet the island’s growing power demand, thus necessitating the installation of another 100 MVA transformer, he said.

“We are preparing for the future demands of the whole Mactan Island’s power supply needs and back up the supply in cases of power (interruptions),” said Pagobo.

He said they scheduled the installation during the Holy Week as this will be the time when households, offices and companies use less power due to the long holiday.

Lapu-Lapu City Acting Mayor Marcial Ycong, on the other hand, also assured that the power outages should not be a cause for alarm considering that today is a Sunday and April 15 is a holiday, thus reducing its effect on businesses.

Gensets for resorts

Eric Monsanto, marketing and communications manager at Bluewater Resorts, said they have in place generator sets that can meet the establishment’s power requirement for the week.

“That’s basically our preparation for the (power interruptions). We also have stocks of fuel ready,” he told Cebu Daily News in a phone interview.
While Holy Week is a break for offices, it is busy period for service-oriented establishments, as it is when foreign and domestic tourists flock to city and island resorts to take advantage of the long break.

Monsanto said the 174-room Bluewater Maribago in Lapu-Lapu City is fully booked for the Holy Week and even the week after that, with most of their guests made up of Korean nationals, followed closely by the Japanese.

The rest were locals, some of whom are residents of Mactan Island looking to break away from the inconvenience brought about by the power interruptions.

The 6 a.m. to 5 p.m. blackouts on April 9 and 15 are meant to give way to the reconfiguration of the feeders, NGCP earlier said.

NGCP added there will be power supply from April 10 to 14, but it will be unstable since only one transformer will be working during that period.

According to NGCP, the new transformer is meant to make power supply on the island more stable in the future.

Representatives of NGCP met with some members of the Hotels, Resorts, and Restaurants Association of Cebu (HRRAC) from Mactan Island last March 31 to inform them about the activity.

Monsanto said he was thankful NGCP informed them early, allowing the hotels, resorts and restaurants on the island to implement measures that would cushion the effects of the interruptions.

He said they were also assured that the water supply to hotels and resorts will not be affected by the outage.
“Basically, it’s business as usual,” Monsanto said.

The same goes for Crimson Resort & Spa Mactan, which expects a 94 percent average occupancy rate from Thursday through Sunday this week.
Mia Sy, area director of PR and marketing communications at Crimson, said the power interruptions are not something new to the resort as it is equipped for these kinds of scenarios.

“It’s just a matter of making sure we have enough fuel for the generator set to provide electricity for full hotel operational requirement,” she said in a text message.

These business establishments along M.L. Quezon Ave., Barangay Pajo, Lapu Lapu City will be experiencing power interruptions during the Holy Week.
CDN PHOTO/JUNJIE MENDOZA

Crimson has a total of 250 rooms and three restaurants, Sy added.

She also said that they also do regular maintenance and have enough power supply in cases like this.

JPark Island Resort and Waterpark’s CEO Jason Uy said they installed power generators with a total capacity of 6 MW since receiving the advisory from Meco in March.

“We ensure and do regular preventive maintenance that these are in good working condition in the event of any power interruption or outages anytime,” he said in a text message, forwarded by JPark’s corporate liaison officer Arthur Lo.

The resort has 556 guest rooms and was seen to have an average occupancy rate of around 90 percent during the Holy Week, but is still growing at the moment, with Korean nationals making up 60 percent of their guests while the rest are Chinese, Japanese and Caucasians.According to Lapu-Lapu City’s tourism office, the island has an inventory of over 5,000 rooms.

Data from accommodation establishments gathered by the Department of Tourism in Central Visayas (DOT-7) showed that Lapu-Lapu City is the second most visited place in Cebu, only after Cebu City.

Cebu welcomed 3.4 million tourists from January to November in 2016, of which 1.25 million were logged in Lapu-Lapu City.

Home preparations

Residents like Doris Cambal, 44, of Barangay Bankal, Lapu-Lapu City, said they have prepared themselves for the brownouts, having been informed by their barangay officials about the power interruptions.

She said her family planned to go out and spend daylight elsewhere, like in generator-powered malls, to avoid the inconvenience of not having a power supply at home.

Carl Dave Black Ang, head of a six-member household in Lapu-Lapu City, said they have two emergency lights and several flashlights ready and fully charged, and have filled up their 2,000-liter water tank since it is electricity dependent.

“We also bought a gas range since we are electricity dependent in cooking our food,” he told Cebu Daily News yesterday.

He said his family also plans to spend their time in a mall on the mainland while waiting for power to return tonight.

Ahmed Cuizon, director of Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB-7) who lives in Barangay Gun-ob, Lapu-Lapu City, said the home power generator he bought after Super Typhoon Yolanda downed the power supply on the island in 2013 would prove useful this week.

“Last week, we had it checked, repaired and loaded with gasoline already. I also purchased a handy solar cell phone charger just in case,” Cuizon told CDN.

They will also temporarily stop relying on refrigerated food supplies and opt for fresh meat and fish from the market, he added.