Arturo Milan, DLPC executive vice president and chief operating office. (file photo)
DAVAO CITY — The Davao Light and Power Co. (DLPC) announced on Thursday, April 14, that there will be no power interruption in Davao City during the May 9 elections.
Arturo Milan, DLPC executive vice president and chief operating officer said that there will be no more brown-out starting on May 1 toMay 30 due to the new contract signed with the Southern Philippines Power Corporation (SPPC) of General Santos City.
He said that they started preparing last year for the upcoming election.
“We already planned this one, that is why there will be a 50-megawatt availablefrom SPPC starting May 1,” Milan said.
Milan added that part of their preparation is the inventory of every precinct under their concern.
Aside from the SPPC contract, the Therma South Inc. (TSI) unit 1 of the Aboitiz PowerCorp. will be expected to resume operation by the last week of April.
By then, the brownout in the city will reduceto two to three hours on April 21-30.
He said the additional supply is hoped to compensate the worsening operational capacity of the Agus hydroelectric power plant s in the Lanao provinces and the Pulangui Power Plant in Bukidnon.
Price hike
Meanwhile, Milan said the bunkerfuel used by the companyfor its Bajada power plant is expensive, to explain why consumers were seeing higher electricity bills despite the frequent and longer brownouts.
”The hydropower is gone so it was replaced byother sources ran by bunker fuel,” he said.
Milan also said that people may wonder why the other neighboring cities do not experience this kind of rotational brown-out.
“We have longer rotational brown-out here because the demand of the city is increasing,” he said.
Milan said that they can not stop the investors to invest here in the city ”since the economic growth is rising and people of Davao need jobs”.
DLPC said it would expect supply to normalize in the second half of the year with the onset of the rainy season and the entry of new coal power plants from San Miguel Global Power and Filinvest Energy Corporation. (davaotoday.com)
