Newsbriefs

T. Padilla fire displaces 12 families

A total of 12 families were displaced in a fire that hit 10 houses in T. Villa St. barangay T. Padilla in Cebu City at 8:25 a.m. yesterday.

The fire started in the house of Jose Villa and razed four houses while six houses were damaged. All houses were made of light materials.

Fire investigators said the blaze was controlled 17 minutes after it broke outs. Damage was estimated to reach P100,000.

Joshua Gonzales, a tenant at Villa’s house, said he was cooking downstairs when he noticed that the second floor was on fire. He called for help and neighbors tried to put out the fire with buckets of water, but the fire quickly spread to neighboring houses.

SFO2 Daniel Relatado said they had difficulty putting out the blaze as their movements were hindered by the crush of people trying to save their belongings and the narrow street leading to the fire scene.

Agapito Amado, 60 sustained burns on his chest while trying to save some of his belongings.

He was immediately brought to a nearby hospital for treatment. T. Villa Street was one of several streets that were subject for re-blocking. Correspondents Chito Aragon and Christine Emily L. Pantaleon

Veco to reward solar energy users

THE Visayan Electric Co. (Veco) will pay customers who produce and distribute solar energy to their grid through a new system they will implement soon.

Veco senior vice president and chief operations officer Sebastian Lacson claims their company will be the first in the country to promote solar energy use through use of the net metering system. (An executive of the Manila Electric Co was interviewed by radio station dzMM last Saturday and discussed the same topic of net metering. — Editor)

Under the net metering system, consumers who use solar power for their daily power needs will be paid for the amount of power they inject into the Veco distribution grid.

“We are encouraging the customers to adopt this kind of technology despite the fact that it is detrimental to the company. One should come out of that very soon, We will be piloting one here in Cebu ,” Lacson said.

During yesterday’s Mega Cebu Forum, Lacson said the net metering system will run in tandem with their STS Prepaid Metering and ENEL Smart Metering system.

Lacson said the Smart Metering System will record electric consumption in hourly intervals or less. The record will be transmitted to Veco for monitoring and billing purposes.

Under the prepaid metering system, customers won’t pay late charges and will not be charged costly disconnect and reconnect fees if their account runs out of credit.

Lacson said Veco is expediting the completion of an underground distribution system along Osmeña boulevard that would replace unsightly electric posts with underground cable connections. He said the underground distribution system will allow the trees to breathe and vegetation to grow. “We’re making sure that the underground cabling won’t affect water and telephone lines. Hopefully, after nine months we can see a much improved Osmeña Boulevard,” Lacson said. Reporter Joy Cherry S. Quito