Gov’t sees 20-hour outages in Occidental Mindoro resolved in two months

The National Electrification Administration (NEA) on Monday vowed to address the daily 20-hour long power outage in Occidental Mindoro.

“I will be flying in tomorrow to see for myself the situation of the PSI powerplant [in San Jose, Occidental Mindoro], if it has [indeed] dependable capacity of six megawatts. If it can deliver and discharge already, I will contract them to discharge the six megawatts,” NEA administrator Antonio Mariano Almeda said in a press conference.

He made the announcement after Occidental Mindoro has been placed under state of calamity due to power outages.

“NEA will be the one to lease the power plant to augment the power [supply and address the] shortage,” he added.

Almeda also reported that the Department of Energy already issued a certificate of exemption or EPSA (emergency power supply agreement) which allowed the government to enter a contract with DMCI for additional power supply.

He said the contract will provide 17 megawatts of power supply.

“DMCI promised to roll out 10 megawatts in a matter of 30 days, [and another] seven megawatts in two months,” Almeda said.

He said he has also instructed the cooperatives in possession of the four units of modular generator sets with two-megawatt capacity each to send it over to Occidental Mindoro Electric Cooperative (Omeco) to provide immediate power supply for hospitals and public schools.

Occidental Mindoro Governor Eduardo Gadiano earlier said hospitals and schools in the province are being spent over the 20-hour daily power outages.—Llanesca Panti/AOL, GMA Integrated News