ZAMBOANGA CITY (MindaNews/14 April) – Power outages in the city have stretched to 6-7 hours daily prompting the local electric cooperative to negotiate with an independent power producer for the purchase of additional load.
The daily rotational blackouts increased from four hours to at least six hours starting Tuesday, which was attributed to the reported decline of power generation from the Mindanao grid.
Omar Sahi, Zamboanga City Electric Cooperative (Zamcelco) president, said they are negotiating with the Therma Marine Inc. (TMI) for the purchase of additional 18 megawatts.
Sahi said the daily outages will be reduced by at least three hours if they can additional power from TMI.
He said TMI is presently providing Zamcelco 18 MW.
He said the longer blackouts came after the National Power Corporation (NPC) cut its supply to Zamcelco to 28-30 MW.
Sahi said Zamcelco received 38-42 MW daily from NPC last week.
“The power allocation is not fixed. It changes every hour,” he added.
He explained the duration of blackouts differs from one feeder to another – six hours for small feeders and seven for big feeders.
He said Zamcelco has 24 electric feeders with around 130,000 member-consumers. The cooperative’s peak-load demand ranges from 80 to 85 MW.
Aside from TMI and NPC, he said Zamcelco also is getting 18 MW from Mapalad Power Corp., another diesel-fired IPP. (MindaNews)
