Veco ready, keeps watch over Leyte power plants

Metro Cebu may have rotational brownouts if supertyphoon Yolanda affects the operation of power plants in Leyte province, the Visayan Electric Company (Veco) said.

The utility firm gets one-third of its power supply from Unified Leyte Inc. and another geothermal power plant in Leyte , said Veco corporate communications manager Theresa Sederiosa in a briefing at the Capitol yesterday.

“Just the fact that the storm will pass over Leyte already has a huge effect so we hope there will be no problems in power supply,” she said during the meeting with telecommunication providers, water and power companies at the Capitol yesterday.

Veco supplies power to Metro Cebu and Liloan town in the north and San Fernando town in the south.

Sederiosa said Veco’s contingency plans are in place. Sister power companies are ready to lend support should they need reinforcements.

“We already designated a team if ever communication lines are compromised and they will be deployed to barangays to figure out the problem,” she said.

“We already asked help from our sister companies, Davao Light, and they are prepared to come over if ever the need arises.”

For Cebu Electric Cooperative (Cebeco), power in hospitals around the province as well as water systems will be their top priority in case of outages, operations engineer Bryan Rava said.

“In case of calamities, we will follow our protocol in responding to disasters. Our radio transmitters are ready as well as our personnel for immediate repairs,” he said. Cebeco has sub-stations in Dumanjug and in the cities of Bogo and Toledo cities.