Cebu business told to expect brownouts till October 2014

Cebu business leaders said they have to adapt and find ways to adjust to the impact of daily rotational brownouts after being told this will go on till October next year.

For now they just have to bear the one- to two-hour outages, said Gordon Alan Joseph, Cebu Business Club president.

“At the moment it’s more of an inconvenience, but in a while we’ll start to see its effects on business,” said Joseph.

He cited as an example his wine shop in Cebu City where brownouts occur between 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. , which are peak hours for the shop.

In a meeting at the Capitol the other day, power industry players could not commit a timeframe for the repair of damaged plants in Leyte and transmission lines even though Energy Secretary Petilla promised to restore power by Christmas eve.

The damage caused by typhoon Yolanda “is nobod’s fault,” said Mandaue Chamber of Commerce and Industry president Philip N. Tan in an interview.

“We’ll just have to bear with it for now.”

He said the repair would take time because replacement parts need to be ordered abroad.

Leyte power plants supply at least 400 megawatts of power to the Visayas grid which until now is not available.

VECO ESTIMATE

Tan said they recently met with Visayan Electric Company (Veco) officials who told them the brownouts would continue until October next year.

“That’s their conservative estimate. We think that we’re still in a better situation compared to others with no power at all,” he said.

LOAD PROGRAM

Veco activated its Interruptible Load Program (ILP) with 26 large businesses that have the capacity to produce their own power like San Miguel Corporation, SM City Cebu and Ayala Center Cebu.

The program has 35.67 MW of interruptible load from the 26 companies participating in the program.

Joseph, however, said that the 35.67 MW is not enough to offset the shortage hence the daily brownouts.

While some firms have bought their own generator sets, prices have gone up and the purchase means additional expense, Joseph said.

Tan encouraged businessmen to be creative in reducing the impact on their operations.

The public can conserve energy at home and at work during peak ours said Theresa Sederiosa, Veco corporate communications manager.

She said peak hours are 9 a.m. to 12 noon, 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. and 6 p.m. to 9 p.m.

As of yesterday, peak demand of the Visayas grid was 1,258 MW.

Supply was only 1,094 MW resulting in a shortage of 164 MW.

Veco’s share of curtailment was 100 MW yesterday morning and 85 MW in the evening.