More Electric and Power Corp. of tycoon Enrique Razon Jr. has rehabilitated 51 distribution transformers, replaced 51 broken electric poles and fixed 97 hotspot connectors over two months as part of an upgrading program for Iloilo City’s aging and dilapidated electricity distribution system.
MORE Power president and chief operating officer Ruel Castro said Iloilo’s new power distributor was spending P1.8 billion to rehabilitate and upgrade Iloilo City’s power distribution system in the next three years.
The move aims to improve electricity supply, lower the monthly bill paid by Ilonggos and improve system capacity to handle bigger demand from consumers and industries in the coming years.
MORE Power also took steps to reduce the monthly bills of customers by cutting down systems losses, which reached 9.03 percent in 2019, as regular customers paid 6.5 percent of such losses.
Castro said technical experts advised MORE Power that a high systems loss of 9.03 percent could mean around 20,000 untraced illegal connections in Iloilo City.
MORE Power inherited all the distribution facilities of Panay Electric Co. after it took over the distribution system as the new congressional franchise owner.
Castro said a technical study of the distribution system by MIESCOR showed PECO’s facilities needed immediate preventive maintenance work or upgrade almost all of the city’s distribution equipment.
He said findings showed 9,000 hotspot connectors must be upgraded or replaced so they would not cause system-wide damage.
“If we will not do anything to fix these substations … one day one of these substations will fail and may cause a bigger problem (than the power supply outage applied during maintenance works),” Castro said in an radio interview.
“I am sorry to use the term … but the system that we took over is dilapidated,” he said.
So far, MORE Power has replaced all switchboards and transformers in all the five substations, almost 400 distribution transformers, thousands of poles,and 15,000 electric meters in all the residences and business establishments in place of the old ones put by PECO.
MORE Power will also put up two new substations and a mobile substation to meet the projected increase in electricity consumption as the city’s economy grows in the coming years.
“MORE Power will give Ilonggos lower electricity bills and meet its growing economy’s needs. We are here to be Iloilo City’s partner in its growth,” Castro said.
Castro said the maintenance work Sunday on the Jaro Substation was done in line with the MIESCOR findings and was completed an hour ahead of the 13-hour schedule in reaction to calls for a congressional investigation into the power outage in Iloilo City from 4 a.m. to 3:43 p.m.
Castro said the early completion of the maintenance work on the Jaro Substation had earned praise from customers. MORE Power is committed to reduce the amount of electricity lost through pilferage as it launched a program to trace the illegal connections that is estimated at the extreme to reach 20,000 “jumpers” and convince the residential owners to apply for regular connections.