Albay power blackout enters sixth day

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LEGAZPI CITY, — Power blackout in Legazpi City and parts of Albay entered its sixth day on Monday after the 35-year-old 20-MVA transformer in the Bitano sub-station here, covering four feeders, totally collapsed on Wednesday morning and is now beyond repair.

The problem in power supply lack came a few months after the San Miguel Energy Corp. (SMEC) took over the operation and management of the debt-strapped Albay Electric Cooperative (Aleco), now called the Albay Power and Energy Corp. (APEC).

The blackout has badly affected this city, as well as the entire municipality of Manito and parts of Sto. Domingo town.

Before the power outage, Albayanos had already been experiencing rotating brownouts for a couple of months now, traceable to several outmoded sub-stations in the province despite the multibillion-peso funding infused by the government to rehabilitate Aleco.

APEC engineers have been desperat to remedy the situation, even tapping the 10-MVA transformer of the Embarcadero Land Ventures Inc. (ELVI). Due to certain known problems, they failed to restore energization in the blackedout areas.

The APEC resorted to rotation scheme and was able to energize certain areas from 12 midnight on Friday until Sunday at 7:30 in the morning when power service was cut off again and supplied to different service area.

An advisory issued by Jane M. Rogando, APEC customer services head, said that as of 3:43 p.m. on Saturday, power supply was restored in Feeder 3 areas with the electricity coming from the 10-MVA ELVI transformer.

The APEC has sourced two 10-MVA transformers from Pampanga and these are expected to have arrived in Legazpi City Sunday afternoon.

A looming scenario that will compound the problem is beeing forseen with another 10-MVA transformer in Tabaco city which is also on the verge of giving way due to obsolescence. (PNA update by Ryadz Barcia)

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