Why we suffered

If brains were ink, these guys would not have enouhg for a full stop!



Dumaguete City and at least eight other towns in Negros Oriental suffered 17 hours of power interruption after a main power transmission line tower of the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines in Barangay Basiao in San Jose was toppled by strong winds at dawn Thursday.

Power was restored around 9 last night but after 15 minutes the power went out again.

Electricity became available again at 9:30 p.m.

Sonia Ruiz, transmission engineer of the NGCP sub-station in Tandayag, Amlan in Negros Oriental, said the 69 KV structure in Basiao was already unstable before it finally gave in to strong winds.

She said they had discovered that the guy wires holding the two-pole structure had been snipped off by unknown persons earlier.

Only three of the original eight strands of guy wires kept the poles upright, making the structure unsound, Ruiz said.

NGCP maintenance crew worked the whole day to ferry on foot two replacement steel posts to the hilltop tower site in Basiao as the area cannot be accessed by vehicles.

She said pilferage of their posts is very common as the suspects use the guy wires for makeshift fishing spears.

Affected by the power outage were Dumaguete City, Sibulan, San Jose, part of Amlan town up to Tandayag, Valencia, Bacong, Dauin, Zamboanguita and Siaton.

The Basiao transmission line supplies direct power to the Negros Oriental 2 Electric Cooperative and huge industries such as the Dumaguete Coconut Mills Inc. and Orica Nitrates in Bacong town.*JFP

 

Typical! No security, no regular maintenance, no forethought, and no road!

 

It is interesting to note that NORECO nowadays are adding substations to upgrade its capacity, and I have noticed that they are replacing old rotten wooden poles with new all weather concrete poles.

 

well, the money has to go somewhere....

but here my 2 cents...

I am here since 4.5 years only, but I can not say it is worse than before, I actually think it is better. I remember that when I arrived here we had several 24 hour brownouts (look at one of the Danes posts 2.5 years ago or so, when he got the electric bill in the middle of a 24hrs brownout), or another old thread (by Earljm) about the "Dumaguete - City of Generator people"

We had the generator running at the Resort daily in the wet season for many hours. Each evening when all TV in Duma and surroundings got switched on there was a brownout lasting usually 2-3 hours.

That is definitely not like that anymore. One year ago the scheduled brownouts started in May and were lasting exactly until the Sunday before the "Pacman" fight in November and from than we had power almost throughout the whole time until the storm in February.

No, I am not defending NORECO or anyone who is involved in this disastrous planning and maintenance-programm, I just think back and have the feeling that the power Situation is a bit better than the last years....

What I know for sure is that the Voltage increased from 185 Volts in Batinguel during "high-power-times" 2 years ago to almost usable 210 Volts...

 

In my own opinion, I think the power outages have gotten worse. Try going around the city and observe the Noreco II lines that look like they are going to fall on your head anytime and you will know that we are yet going to experience the worst.

 

Yep the power lines hangin in town remind me of a giant bowl of black spaghetti

 

Until they sort those power lines out (um... is this really going to happen? and if so, when?) there will always be power cuts. 20 years on and it's still the same excuses.

 

Any electrical experts out there - listen up, I have a real life question... In Dumaguete you are suppose to be receiving voltage around the 200 mark. Apparently it is way lower some times, say 185 as Rhoody mentioned above.
If your computer really needs 220 volts and is receiving only 185 volts -- is that likely to damage the computer in any way? Why not have an American type computer, running at 120 volt, and step the 220 or 185 or whatever voltage down with a voltage converter? Would that be more dependable than running on a weak 185 or something like that??

Thanks --Rich--

 

Easier and cheaper just to purchase a cheap AVR (automatic voltage regulator). This will keep your voltage up above the 200 mark even if you input voltage is only 160, which mine often is.

Larry

 

Where can one buy one and how much?