Aklan’s power supply sufficient to continue lighting up Boracay

The supply of electricity in the province of Aklan is sufficient to continuously light up Boracay despite the power shortage still being felt in the entire Visayas area.

Engr. Alexis Regalado, general manager of the Aklan Electric Cooperative (Akelco) said last Saturday that Boracay Island and the entire province of Aklan is not affected by the intermittent power interruptions in the Visayas.

This was part of Regalado’s message during the 34th Akelco General Assembly  held at the ABL Sports Complex at the Aklan Provincial Capitol. The event was participated by around 13,500 member-consumers from Aklan, including consumers in nearby Antique.

“We were only required by the Department of Energy to contribute at least 1 percent of our overall total energy supply to the Visayas grid. Because of this, we have to do intermittent load shedding from time to time but our member consumers are not largely affected,” Regalado said.

He added they have attained sufficient energy by recently commissioning the new Nabas 10MVA Substation Capacity Project.

He also reported that in summer of this year, the power cooperative recorded a record breaking 61 megawatt (MW) of usage from member-consumers.

He also cited the contribution of the member-consumers of Boracay, where Akelco got 98.98-percent collection efficiency rate.

Currently, Akelco gets its electricity from the Green Core Geothermal Inc. (18 MW); Panay Energy Development Corp. (12 MW); Panay Power Corp. (5 MW); SPC Island Power Corp. (4 MW); and the Palm Concepcion Power Corp. (7 MW). Akelco also frequently get its power from the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market, if needed.

Elena Panado, treasurer of the Board of Directors of Akelco, said the power cooperative is also financially healthy.

Earlier, Engr. Joel Martinez, chief of the Akelco Operations Division, however, said that Boracay may still experience fewer incidents of power failures because they are upgrading their current distribution facilities in Boracay.

“Boracay consumers have been complaining of frequent brownouts. Among the causes were the flying kites that touch the electrical wires, lizards, birds and snakes. Strong winds and climate change also contribute to these. To address this problem, we are now starting this year the upgrading of our system in Boracay,” Martinez said.

Akelco is initially allocating P19 million for these upgrade. They had already submitted the intent to the Energy Regulatory Commission for the project’s capital expenditure.

“We hope to finish upgrading our Boracay distribution system this year,” he added.