Electric co-ops in CL, East Visayas fully operating after twin quakes
By Lenie Lectura – April 26, 2019
from Business Mirror
ALL electric cooperatives (ECs) in Central Luzon and Eastern Visayas are now supplying power to their assigned areas after two earthquake incidents hit Luzon and the Visayas early this week.
The National Electrification Administration (NEA) said the ECs have reported normal operations including those in Pampanga, which suffered a series of power interruptions shortly after the 6.1-magnitude tremor struck Zambales on Monday.
NEA Deputy Administrator for Technical Services Artis Nikki Tortola said it took a while for the Pampanga II Electric Cooperative Inc. (Pelco II) to fully restore power for all its customers, but its distribution system was expected to normalize by April 24.
The Guagua-based Pelco II earlier reported it was able to switch the lights back on for 201,227 or 99.85 percent of its consumers on April 23.
“All [ECs in Central Luzon] are under normal operations already—even Pelco II, which was significantly hit. But so far, they have restored their system as of Wednesday,” Tortola said.
Meanwhile, the Eastern Samar Electric Cooperative Inc. (Esamelco) reported it has fully restored electricity service to nine municipalities (Arteche, Can-avid, Dolores, Jipadpad, Maslog, Oras, San Policarpio, Taft and Sulat) out of 23 areas affected by the 6.5-magnitude earthquake on April 23.
Power-restoration efforts continued and were completed by Wednesday for the municipalities of Balangiga, Balangkayan, Borongan City, General MacArthur, Giporlos, Guiuan, Hernani, Lawaan, Llorente, Maydolong, Mercedes, Quinapondan, Salcedo and San Julian, where the quake’s epicenter was located.
The coverage areas of Samar I Electric Cooperative Inc. (Samelco I), Samelco II, Northern Samar Electric Cooperative Inc. (Norsamelco) also experienced varying degrees of outages because of the earthquake, but power has been restored.
Tortola said the tremor only caused minor damage to power co-ops in Eastern Visayas.
