TACLOBAN CITY, July 8 — It will take three to seven days before power will be restored in Eastern Visayas, said Department of Energy (DOE) Undersecretary Felix William Funetebella at the emergency meeting of the Regional Development Council Saturday afternoon.
Fuentebella attended the RDC meeting representing DOE Secretary Alfonso Cusi who conducted inspection and assessment at the geothermal plants in the town of Kananga and Ormoc City following the 6.5 magnitude earthquake that hit Leyte on July 6.
“DOE and its family is working around the clock to restore power for the three million electricity subscriber in the Visayas,” Fuentebella said.
“But if we want to make the repair resilient we will have to work on that for 180 days,” Fuentebella added. Fuentebella added that they were also looking at deployment of three power barges now in Iloilo with a capacity of 20MW each to provide the needed power in the region.
He added there were also generator sets with a capacity of 1MW for the use of hospitals to continue their operations which local government unit could borrow from the agency.
“A 1MW generator can provide power to a 12-storey building using full capacity of the equipment inside,” Fuentebella explained to RDC members.
The DOE official also stressed that in the power restoration conducted by the agency, government offices and commercial establishment were the priority to continue the delivery of government services and not to hamper the economic activity.
“Good thing that all 11 electric cooperatives in the region are ready and prepare to receive power supply from the NGCP,” Fuentebella added citing the report of electric cooperatives at the RDC meeting.
In the presentation of Energy Development Corporation (EDC) at the RDC, they informed the members that the power plants that suffered damages from the earthquake were the Tongonan Geothermal Power Plant 1 and Malitbog Unit 3 that has damage in its cooling tower.
Repair for the TGPP 2 (35MW) may be within seven to 10 days while Upper Mahiao plant (132MW) will be five to seven days.
The Malitbog 1 & 2 plants (150 MW) be from five to 10 days while they had not reach the Mahanagdong plant to assess the damage.
“Our contractors our working double time to restore power and we are targeting around 300MW of electricity to supply in Eastern Visayas in the next three to seven days,” James Arnold Villaroman, EDC vice-president said. (Roel T. Amazona/PNA)
