What's with all the brown outs?

In the 4 months since I have lived in Duma it seems like every week there are 1, 2 or 3 brownouts ranging from a few minutes to a half hour.

Is it always like this? What is going on? Is it likely to improve? Other places I have lived in Philippines have brown outs but no so frequent as this.

 

Dave , I have noticed that the brownouts appear to happen more when it is warmer weather , because everybody wants the fans and a/c on , I am referring to north of Duma for my experience mainly , Tanjay , the worst we had was 4 days , if they took the import tax off of solar panels , like they have in Australia , more people would be inclined to install them , which would greatly reduce the load on the struggling existing power grid ,

Is it likely to improve? no

Tony

 

Each brown out that occurs is some kind of annoyance. But still praise yourself happy living in the Dumaguete area.
Ever been in Mindanao nowadys like for instance Dipolog city that can be compared with Dumaguete.
Well 2 or 3 times a day you can enjoy the "fun" of a brown out lasting from when luckily 1 hour up to 3 hours.

 

What part of Duma do you live in? I also live in Dumaguete, but in the last 4 months I can not recall one single brownout where we live. It's not to say that they don't happen, but we haven't had any for a while. As a side note Noreco has a Facebook page and they do list which areas that they will be working on and when so one can be prepared for the temporary power outage. With the frequency of your problem I would contact them and ask them to look into it as there may be a poor/loose connection up the line from you.

 

I am happy to live in Duma. I moved here from a typhoon stricken area where we had no power for months. But that was understandable and there is an end in sight. The annoying brownouts here can be dealt with but seem so senseless. They often occur in the evening and they are not long enough for any repairs. This is not a peak hour thing.

For Knowdafish: I am in Camanjac and the landlord lives in the same compound but he is filipino so thinks this is normal life here. I shall look into that facebook page and ask them about this. Thanks.

 

Supply and demand

How right this is, bearing in Mind, Noreco II is a Distributor and not a Producer, We are in a Supply and Demand situation here, there was a National Broadcast about shortage of Power over the summer period, some 2 weeks ago. Noreco II are trying their best to serve us all and have to equalise the Substations and put some on low voltage or even Brownout to be fair to all. Should they fail, in load sharing we will Find the Good old, No Stock situation.


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The Brownouts are not too severe at this time and I think we will just have to live with it, When Noreco II can buy more. I am sure they will, This is not just a local issue but philippines wide.


JP

 

Brownouts don't have to be so bad.

I get very frustrated with these long brownouts, like today when it is all day long. So I went to the hardware department of Lee Plaza (downstairs) and asked for an inverter. I got a 1000 watt inverter for 1899, came home and hooked it to my pick up truck battery. I am now enjoying my laptop, hooked to MyBro internet and the signal is great as there is no one sharing it. I have a 16 inch electric fan blowing on me so I am cool. My gf is watching the tv, hooked to the VCR (PhilProducts is not broadcasting during the brownout) and all this on a 1000 watt source.

To be sure my truck will start tomorrow I have it idling while I am drawing all this current. A small price to pay for creature comforts. If this plan works for the next 4 hours I shall buy an extra battery, just to keep on standby for brownouts.

 

UPDATE:

Well that only lasted 20 minutes. All that drain on the battery sucked it dry in 20 minutes. I turned the truck (diesel engine) up to fast idle (1500 RPM) and turned off most of what I was using and it is fine for the computer and MyBro. By that I mean the charging from the engine is keeping up with the current draw. I shall have to experiment to see how much more I can draw or how many batteries I would have to keep charged up to see me through an 8 hour brown out with all the toys on.

Just thought some would be interested in knowing these little tidbits of info :-)

 

I would try a much smaller fan. Curious whether you were using the laptop charging cord or the laptop battery? I think the charger cord wastes alot of electricity reducing it from 220. I found a 9 cell battery for my dell laptop to replace / in addition to the original 6 cell battery for $60. I wonder what your alternator and battery are rated at? I found a calculator for dummies and I think they are pessimistic assuming only 12.5v input which your alternator should better but it still tells a tale. You can supply 220v at 4.5 amps (990 watts) but the inverter will draw 91 amps and if you have a 100 amp alternator the engine would have to be screaming to produce that amperage as alternators become less efficient as they approach peak output. Of course alternators don't put out peak at idle either. I run some fairly heavy loads on my inverter in my Toyota 4runner, the shop vac is about 6.2 amps at 120v 774 watts and a 500 watt 16 cup rice cooker, but it only takes about 20 minutes to detail the truck and the rice cooker is timed for 20 minutes and I have two 107 amp hour batteries, my engine, gasoline, probably idles higher and I have a 130 amp alternator. If I had to take a wild guess, I think you could draw 1.5 amps continuously from your inverter with the engine idling and 2 amps for a long period of time, maybe 8 hours . Another guesstimate is you could add another 0.5 amps at 220v that you could power for about 8 hours per 100 amp hour battery. It would be lovely if you could overdrive the alternator to get a little better output at idle speed since the alternator freewheels when battery voltage meets voltage regulated output only adding slight wear and tear to the alternator when driving. If there is a good alternator shop in town you might be able to get a smaller pulley fitted, there should be something that people with outrageous stereos use, speakers pull alot of juice. The more you could get from the alternator at idle, the fewer batteries you would need to power what you want to power. I hope this makes it more comprehensible. Heres the link to the calculator I found. BatteryStuff Tools | AC to DC Amperage Calclator Through An Inverter