Utilities & Mobile Best Posts in Thread: Addressing NORECO/Electrical Issues

I see that this has become an issue again. Let's try to set a few ground rules for discussing the topic:

1. When addressing brownouts or other electrical issues do so in a respectful manner and don't take the loss of power personal. (Avoid name calling/personal attacks)
2. If you know why something is the way it is or how to properly deal/resolve the issue or who to contact about unannounced brownouts please do so in a respectful manner, without personal attacks and don't take things personal. (Also please avoid the "deal with it or move somewhere else" replies.)

I fully understand that having your electricity go out in a tropical country can be a real pain in the @ss and be very annoying...especially for westerners that are used to reliable utilities and business owners who lose a lot of time, money and productivity when these brownouts occur.

I also understand that there are members here that have friends and family that work for these utility companies and it can feel very insulting when people say that the employees of the company are idiots or incompetent at their jobs.

I think it is important that everyone understands how utilities, specifically electricity, works in the Philippines since many times brownouts are not the fault of NORECO (though many times they are). So I will try to explain all the different players and the laws that can lead to brownouts. Note that I am gathering this information through Google, if any of this information is wrong please feel free to correct me.

Spoiler: Philippine Power

Power Generation:
Private companies that generate power are authorized to operate and regulated by the Energy Regulation Commission (ERC). The ERC is in charge of making sure these companies comply with EPIRA standards. Remember that this is a government agency in the Philippines and is prone to the same "issues" you have with every government agency in a 3rd world country. Regulations and standards can be overlooked for the right price.

Power Transmission:
This along with rates are regulated by the ERC. The National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) won the bid to control this until 2058. However, the previous owner of the national transmission system, TRANSCO (I'm assuming this is/was the previous government ran operation), still owns all of the poles, lines, substations, land, etc and TRANSCO is also responsible for making sure NGCP follows regulations. Again, the government is still involved.

Power Distribution:
This is where NORECO II comes in the picture. Rates here are regulated by the ERC and it appears that the National Electrification Administration (NEA) is responsible for setting up programs to insure these companies upkeep their infrastructure and remain financially solvent. There seems to be less government regulation here...which shows that sometimes these regulations are a good thing.

A lot of places where things can get screwed up along the way to your house.

Another issue is the rights that land owners have over the electrical companies. In most of our home countries if an electrical company needs to do maintenance on lines they just come and do the work, there is little a land owner can do to stop this...not so in the Philippines.

Now I'm not trying to make it sound like the electrical companies in the Philippines don't hold their share of the blame. One look at the mess of wires happening at the top of the power lines will show that they certainly aren't following electrical/safety standards. I won't, however, blame the linemen or other non-management employees for this. I suspect there are reasons why this happens...probably really bad reasons IMO, but reasons nonetheless.

I won't go so far as to call the management incompetent/greedy/stupid/lazy but the state of the infrastructure certainly leaves some hard questions to be answered by those in charge.

Note: I know in the past I have been responsible for sh*t stirring on this topic myself. I would like to apologise to those I have offended in the past (JP). My intentions here are not to point fingers at anyone but to try to make this a topic that can be discussed in a helpful and civil manner.

If everyone is talking "at" each other and taking these things personally then nobody is going to want to help anyone. Calling the electrical co-op employees idiots and telling people to deal with it or move doesn't lead to any meaningful conversation or help anyone.

If a user feels the need to post a thread every time the lights flicker then they will be free to do so on this forum, but in a respectful manner. If someone wishes to explain why the lights flickered or offer advice on how to fix the problem then they will also be free to do so, but in a respectful manner.

However, one thing to take note of: the Philippines has always had issues with supplying electricity and other utilities. It probably won't change any time soon. The only way you are going to have electricity 100% of the time will be to spend a lot of money and have backup systems (UPS, generator, etc). It is not a defense for the electrical companies and should not be an excuse for them to stop improving the infrastructure, it is just what you currently have to do to have power 24/7.

If any of the information I put out here is wrong I apologise in advance. Please feel free to correct me.

 

You should see the previous x4 NORECO II notices on the side bar of every forum page now (or towards the bottom of the page if on a mobile device). Title will be a link to their Twitter page with the picture of the notice.

If you have a feed reader app on your phone (Example: Feedly) you can enter in the RSS feed into the search of that app and add it to your favorites.

Alternatively, many email programs (Example: Thunderbird, Outlook, etc) have an RSS feed option that will send you an email or notification when the feed is updated.

The link you would enter into any feed reader would be:

https://twitrss.me/twitter_user_to_rss/?user=norecotwo

This is a quick fix to getting notifications about power interruptions. I can probably set it up to where the forum email account will send out emails to a list for anyone wanting to be on such a distro list later.

 

Email notifications for NORECO II announcements should be possible from the forum now. Created a new sub-forum just for this purpose:
NORECO II Announcements

I have created a "Read Me" thread in that sub-forum explaining how the sub-forum works and how to get the email notifications for the NORECO announcements that will be posted there:
Read Me - Get Emails for NORECO II Announcements

Everyone should take note that this is a DI forum feature (not an official NORECO II service) and it is in beta mode right now. I will not know for sure if it is working as it should until NORECO II posts another update to their Twitter page.

 

I received x3 emails from DI containing full size images of NORECO II announcements on Wednesday. FYI scheduled brownouts for 20 and 21 May.

 

This was bought up in the past here on the forum (maybe in a private forum) but nothing came of it because of reasons mentioned by JP. FB is currently the only way to get these notifications. Someone in NORECO management does own the domain name for the company (and it was purchased long ago), would be nice if they would create a website, if not just for posting these updates and/or having an RSS feed. Something like that would cost them less than $50/year (they already pay $10+ for the domain name per year).

I have previously created a feed on the forum from their FB page but I'm pretty sure it won't work for those that don't have a FB account...which defeats the purpose of having the feed on the forum for a lot of people.

I could probably try to get a bit creative with IFTTT and the forum software to create an opt-in email list for their updates on Facebook without any approval/action from NORECO. Might look into that when I get back to my base (and after I catch up with work that built up during this vacation).