The Philippine Online Chronicles

Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) announced that it will be implementing rotating brownouts today from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. in Metro Manila and surrounding areas. The outages,Meralco said, is in order to cope with the insufficient capacity of its generators.

Reports said that some of Meralco's power generation facilities are out of commission due to "fuel constraints", while some are undergoing maintenance, limiting the capacity of the country's largest energy provider.

The country has been experiencing difficulties with energy since early in the year, when the National Grid Corp. put Luzon on "red alert" after one of the Sual power plant's units conked out. The Luzon power grid, NGCP Vice President for Systems Operations Carlito Claudio told Inquirer.net, did not have enough energy reserves -- it was already on "yellow alert" before the Sual plant outage.

Meralco, which is connected to the Luzon grid, thus started implementing two-hour brownouts in the Metro and nearby areas to compensate for the lack of power.

According to the government, the country's power deficiency is largely caused by the El Nino phenomenon. Mindanao has been bearing the brundt of the burden, experiencing brownouts of up to 12 hours.

Current problems with energy has cast a shadow of doubt on whether the coming elections will go smoothly -- the government is thus assuring citizens that it will have in place contingency measures to counter problems potentially caused by the power fluctuations.

Meralco schedule of brownouts and affected areas. May change without prior notice. Click here.

---

Add this page to your favorite Social Bookmarking websites