Victorias Mayor Javier Miguel “Javi” Benitez on Monday, September 4, stressed the need for the Northern Negros Electric Cooperative to upgrade its equipment or have a backup transformer to prevent a repeat of the six-day blackout that hit three northern Negros towns.
John Deles, NONECO area operations manager, said as of Sunday night, they had restored power to EB Magalona, Victorias City and Manapla.
However, during the gradual restoration it was detected by their technical engineers that Feeder No. 1 in Victorias was experiencing fault lines. Power in the Victorias areas covered by Feeder 1 was finally fully restored Monday afternoon, Deles said.
The blackout was triggered by the explosion of the lightning arrester at the 15MVA substation of NONECO in Bacayan, Canetown, Victorias City, on August 28.
Central Negros Electric Cooperative (CENECO) lent NONECO a 15MVA transformer to enable it to restore power to the three LGUs on Sunday.
Benitez said the blackout caused losses to businesses in Victorias City. “We will conduct a post- assessment of the incident,” he said.
Manapla Mayor Manuel Escalante said the blackout slightly affected small puto producers and businesses in his town. The town government lent the small puto producers a generator to run their grinders so they could resume production, he said.
EB Magalona Mayor Marvin Malacon said the blackout did not affect businesses in his town.
Benitez acknowledged the efforts of NONECO, CENECO and their management, especially the linemen, in restoring power to the three LGUs.
He said in 2010 a similar blackout also hit Victorias City
“This should not happen again,” he said.
Benitez urged the management of NONECO to upgrade and digitize its equipment.
“Right now, they are still operating manually,” he said.
He also suggested that EB Magalona should have its own substation separate from the one in Victorias City.*