MORE Power says rollout of P1.8-B modernization program to solve Iloilo City brownouts

Razon-led MORE Electric and Power Corp. said Tuesday the brownouts experienced in Iloilo City due to its maintenance works will be addressed as it rolls out a P1.8-billion modernization program.

This, after Iloilo City experienced a 13-hour brownout last Sunday due to MORE’s maintenance works at the La Paz substation. 

MORE president and COO Roel Castro said part of the company’s three-year modernization program is the installation of a looping system of the 69-kilovolt sub-transmission facility to provide backup power supply whenever the firm conducts preventive maintenance and repairs of any of the five substations around the city.

A loop system rings through the service area and returns to the original point. The loop is usually tied to an alternate power source. By placing switches in strategic locations, the utility can supply power to the customer from either direction and minimizes outages, according to Castro.

MORE said it also replaced more than 130 transformers installed by former distribution utility Panay Electric Co. (PECO) that were in danger of exploding or bursting into fire from high temperature either because they are too old or were never subjected to maintenance operations.

The new distribution utility also replaced over 100 wooden electric poles with concrete ones to protect the system and the public as well from falling poles.

Castro said unscheduled and unannounced power outages can be attributed to the combination of high pilferage and unreliability of the old equipment.

He said the company will upgrade the Jaro substation and the City Proper substation and rehabilitate the other substations.

“Apart from correcting the load demand of each substation, the improvements will also prepare the distribution system for the growing demand for power in the next five to 10 years,” Castro said.

MORE is also expecting the arrival of a 10-megavolts ampere mobile substation which will be used to augment the capacity of the overloaded substations.

The utility said it has replaced 138 distribution transformers in the first three months of its operation as the city’s distribution utility.

A distribution transformer is the type of transformer that performs the last voltage conversion in a distribution grid.

It converts the voltage used in the transmission lines to one suitable for household and commercial use, typically down to 220 to 240 volts, depending on the requirements of a service area.

MORE said it is also addressing the problem of jumpers or illegal connections which overload the distribution system.

Castro said illegal connections do not just burden legitimate consumers who pay for stolen electricity by way of the so-called systems loss but also takes toll on the system as they are never included in the demand profile of Iloilo City.

“We already streamlined the application of new connections in coordination with the local government so that more jumpers, particularly informal settlers, will be enticed to apply for connections,” Castro said.

“Aside from that, most of the jumpers found out that they will pay less for their supply because we reduced to rates to at least P9 per kilowatt-hour compared to P20 per kilowatthour they paid to individuals who perpetuate the illegal connections,” he said. —LDF, GMA News