07 May 2007
LEGAZPI CITY—IT WILL TAKE up to May 12, or two days before the elections, for the power situation to become normal in Bicol, a top official of the National Transmission Corp. (Transco) said Saturday.
Guillermo Redoblado, Transco vice president for Luzon operations and maintenance, said the daily power outages were caused by the toppling of six Transco towers on May 1 and 2.
He noted “metal fatigue” in one of the towers that had been damaged by the series of strong typhoons that hit the region last year.
It created a domino effect that toppled other towers.
Cost of damage has been pegged at P20 million.
Bicol is now isolated from the national grid and has been forced to generate its own power through its two power plants—the Tiwi Geothermal Plant and the Bacon-Manito power plant.
However, total power demand in Bicol is 150 megawatts and the two plants only produce around 90 megawatts, so “load dropping” has to be done in various areas in Bicol every two hours, thus the power outages.
Redoblado said the temporary solution was for the company to implement a bypass plan by using the “healthy” portions of the Gumaca-Labo line to provide Tayabas a new link to Naga.
It will take until May 13 to implement the plan but, he said, President Macapagal-Arroyo requested that the power supply be normalized on May 12. Ephraim Aguilar, Inquirer Southern Luzon
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