Brownouts hit Baguio, Benguet;folk irate for lack of information

BAGUIO CITY – Residents of this city and the nearby province of Benguet are irate over daily brownouts which hampered business and livelihood even as they assailed the Benguet Electric Coop. for not issuing adequate advisories on schedule of power outages through the media.

They said since Beneco is the one which supplies electricity to these areas, it should coordinate with power suppliers so schedule of brownouts could be known and announce these.
Around 80 percent of the nearly 150,000 consumers of Beneco experience two-hour daily brownouts.

Gerardo Verzosa, Beneco general manager, told the media rotating brownouts that have spread to most parts of Luzon is an effort of the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines to control the use of limited power being produced in the Luzon island.

Verzosa said the rotating brownouts could be compounded by the expected shutdown of several hydroelectric power dams in Luzon, particularly the 75-megawatt Binga Dam in Itogon, Benguet and the 360-megawatt Magat Dam in Ramon, Isabela because of the limited water flowing into the reservoirs.

Magat Dam’s water is now way below its critical level of 160 meters above sea level, while the water in Binga Dam is also below its 560 meters above sea level critical level.

Earlier, lawyer Mike Hosillos, vice president for external affairs of SN Aboitiz Power Corporation in Benguet, revealed that once the two dams reach their respective critical levels, their power plants will eventually shut down and stop producing power for the Luzon grid.

Because of the unscheduled rotating brownouts plaguing Baguio over the past several days, local businessmen and city officials challenged the NGCIP to come out with a definite schedule for the outages so they could adjust their respective work schedules in order not to severely affect their operations.

Verzosa said Beneco is willing to cooperate in implementation of the rotating brownouts but agreed with consumers that such power outages should have definite schedule.