The Albay Electric Cooperative, Inc. (ALECO) has announced a massive clearing operation to address power line tripping and other technical issues that lead to frequent outages.
ALECO vice president Cezar Bordeos, Jr. said their cooperative does not intend to cause inconvenience, but had to repair their “reclosers,” which has been conking out recently.
In electric power distribution, reclosers are types of switchgears designed to detect and interrupt transient faults or abnormality in the supply of electricity.
ALECO explained that the 12-hour power interruption last May 17 had been scheduled for clearing operations and maintenance of their system.
Hundreds of electricity consumers particularly in urban areas complained about the outages. A three-hour brownout occurred when a delivery truck hit a primary line near the Philippine National Police (PNP) headquarters in Legazpi City.
Mark Jessan Lucilo, head of ALECO’s technical team, said a recloser is too sensitive that whenever electrical grounding occurs, it automatically shuts down.
Grounding of power lines may happen when branches, twigs, leaves, animals, and other things touch these lines.
Due to high humidity or warm weather these days, more cooling appliances have also been utilized by consumers, thus overload or backing down of power plants happen from time to time.
ALECO admits it has recorded more power interruptions in April this year.