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The Visayan Electric Co. (Veco) expects lower power usage this coming All Saints? Day and All Souls? Day, but will be providing additional power to cemeteries that have requested it.
?We don?t expect much power requirement on Nov. 1 and 2 because all of the manufacturing establishments, offices, and schools are closed for the holidays,? said Ethel Natera, Veco corporate communications officer.
She added that malls would also have shorter operating times on those days, making it likely that enough energy would be available at cemeteries, where most of the activities will be concentrated.
?These cemeteries only request for additional load every November because the whole year round they don?t really require as much power as on those days,? Natera added.
Additional transformers near cemeteries would be installed to prevent overloading, she said.
Cemeteries that have requested additional load from Veco are the Calamba, Carreta, Talamban, Pardo and Kabantan public cemeteries and the Cebu Memorial Park private cemetery in Cebu City, the St. Joseph Cemetery in Mandaue City, the Poblacion public cemetery and Cebu South Memorial Garden in Talisay City, and cemeteries in the town of Minglanilla.
The Calamba Public Cemetery asked for the biggest additional load: two transformers, each with the capacity of 167 kilovolt-amperes (kVA).
The cemetery with the lowest additional power request is the Talamban Public Cemetery, which asked for an additional 50 kVA.
All other cemeteries requested an additional transformer of 100 kVA capacity.
?All these transformers are temporary and will be pulled out after Nov. 2,? Natera said.
Peak hours in Cebu are from 10 a.m. to noon, 1 p.m. to 3 p.m., and 5 p.m. to 8 p.m., she said.
The pattern might change on Nov. 1 and 2 as most people are outside of their homes visiting their dead loved ones in the cemeteries, she said.
?We can?t assure that there would be no brownouts during that time because power plants have been conking out or undergoing maintenance at the same time recently, including those in our grid,? Natera said.
She said Veco has contingency plans to handle problems with their lines as well as in their installed transformers.
?We wouldn?t know if the things we installed would still be lacking, so we?ll have people on call at that time. If needed, we?ll pick them up from their own homes and bring them to where they?re needed,? she said.
Natera said Veco?s contingency plans have been in place and practiced over several years.
