Power outages continue to hit metro
It looks like consumers of Panay Electric Company (Peco), the sole power distributor in Iloilo City, could not yet get a reprieve from daily power shutdown.
But unlike Monday’s power failure that hit almost all parts of Iloilo City, Engr. Randy Pastolero, special assistant to the Peco president and chief executive officer, said that yesterday’s power interruption was minimal.
Aside from the expected “shorter” time of power interruption, Pastolero said that the areas affected were reduced.
When asked on the reason of the citywide blackout, Pastolero said that it is due to supply-related outages in Iloilo City.
“May duha ka units ang Panay Power Corporation nga wala maka deliver sa aton. Ang reason behind is that diesel generator number 4 and diesel generator number 7 nila bale ginpa-offline anay nila kay may ulubrahon sila,” Pastolero told GMA Iloilo.
In several areas of Iloilo City, the blackout hit Monday morning and it was connected by noontime.
However, by 3:00 p.m., another blackout occurred and it went on until 6:30 p.m.
“Ang number 7 nakabalik na late in the afternoon but ang number 4 was expected to be online this morning (Tueday),”he added. “Hopefully, if unit number 4 comes in, there would be power interruption but it would be very minimal.”
Yesterday, some areas in Iloilo City were again hit by a less-than-an-hour power interruption by noontime.
“That’s the reason because we were short plus the fact that our supply from the grid was disconnected because of the undergoing construction of a power line to our new substation from the PPC coal-fired power plant (in La Paz, Iloilo City),” he added.
Pastolero admitted that there was a high demand but the available supply is not enough to cater to their consumers’ needs.
Last week, the city was also engulfed in darkness after a one-hour blackout.
But it was not due to supply-demand outage.
Instead, lightning brought by thunderstorms was the alleged cause of the power shutdown in almost all areas.
