Power restored in blackout-hit Negros Occidental areas

BACOLOD CITY—Power has been restored in two towns and one city of Negros Occidental hit by blackouts on Oct. 15 due to a damaged transformer of the Northern Negros Electric Cooperative (Noneco).

“We have achieved 100 percent power restoration,” Noneco said in a statement Friday.

Noneco installed a 10-megavolt-ampere (MVA) power transformer at its Victorias substation to replace a 15-MVA transformer that broke down on Tuesday, said its General Manager Wilbe Bilbao.

The damage to the 15-MVA power transformer at the Victorias substation plunged 30,000 households into darkness in Enrique B. Magalona town and Victorias City and portions of Manapla town at 5:50 a.m. on Tuesday but 90 percent of the power had been restored in these areas by Wednesday afternoon.

Bilbao said most of the remaining areas whose power was fully restored on Friday were in remote locations.

The 10-MVA transformer used to restore power was borrowed from the Negros Occidental Electric Cooperative, said Bilbao.

The busted 15-MVA transformer was also borrowed by Noneco from the Central Negros Electric Cooperative last year when the three localities were hit with power outages.

Enrique B. Magalona Mayor Marvin Malacon criticized Noneco for failing to buy a new power transformer for its Victorias’ substation despite experiencing the same problems last year, which caused a five-day blackout in his town in September 2023 that hampered business operations and inconvenienced residents.

The mayor said he wrote to Noneco last February asking if he had solutions to the outages experienced in the town but never got a reply. Bilbao, who was appointed general manager of Noneco only three months ago, said he would look for Malacon’s letter and act on it.

“If Noneco could not solve the problem, it would be better to privatize the cooperative,” Malacon said on Wednesday.