Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather Jr. Photo by Rem Zamora/INQUIRER/ See more at FRAME
CEBU CITY—There will be no power interruption in the Visayas during the historic fight between Filipino boxing icon Manny Pacquiao and American boxing champion Floyd Mayweather, the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines has said.
Ma. Rosette Martinez, NGCP regional corporate communications and public affairs officer, said there has been no scheduled power interruption in any part of the Visayas on Sunday despite the expected increase in power demand due to the Pacquiao-Mayweather fight.
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“Load on a Sunday is normally low but historically, during a Pacquiao fight, load increases. Given the present supply and demand situation, the supply in Visayas will be enough even if load increases due to increased use of electricity,” she told the Inquirer.
As of Saturday, power capacity was at 1,573 megawatts, 117 MW more than the power demand of 1,456 MW.
READ: No brownouts in Mindanao on Pacquiao-Mayweather fight day
Sebastian Lacson, Visayan Electric Co. chief operating officer, said their crew would be on stand-by on Sunday in case there would be emergency power outage.
Veco serves the cities of Cebu, Talisay, Mandaue and Naga and the towns of Liloan, Consolacion, Minglanilla and San Fernando.
“We feel confident about power supply being sufficient since it is a weekend and a long one at that. Weekends normally mean lower over-all demand. This means we can afford, if ever, to see a power plant or two not deliver for some reason,” said Lacson in a statement.
In Iloilo, the Panay Electric Co. (Peco) personnel inspected their distribution lines and other facilities, especially the 69-kilovolt line that connects to the coal fired power plant in La Paz district operated by Panay Energy Development Corp (PEDC).
Engr. Randy Pastolero, Peco vice president for operations and general manager, said Peco asked the Panay Power Corp., sister company of PEDC, to keep its 75-MW diesel-fired power plant running as a backup power source on Sunday in case there would be problem in the coal-fired plants.
In Leyte, the National Electrification Administration central office ordered the Leyte II Electric Cooperative to ensure there would be no power interruption.
“We have already directed all our area managers and technical personnel to have some precautionary measures that will not cause any power interruption during this Sunday event,” said Ma. Rosario Avestruz, general manager of Leyteco II which serves Tacloban and the nearby towns of Palo and Babatngon.
These measures include checking of power lines and possible overloading of power that may cause interruptions. Joel Franco, Carmel Loise Matus, Joey A. Gabieta and Carla P. Gomez
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