Power supply in the Visayas, including Negros Occidental, will stabilize next week once Unit 1 of the 246-MW coal plant of the Cebu Energy Development Corp. in Toledo City is back on line after shutting down Friday last week, a Department of Energy official in the Visayas said yesterday.

Ray Maleza, supervisor of the DOE Visayas field office, said that, as of yesterday, only Unit 2 of the 164-MW coal plant of Panay Energy Development Corp. (PEDC) in Iloilo and the 36-MW unit of the Tongonan Geothermal Power Plant in Leyte were on line.

Maleza, however, said the Tongonan plant went off- line for a few hours on Tuesday, which resulted, to the shortage of power supply.

Because of that, Rosette Martinez, National Grid Corporation of the Philippines Visayas public affairs officer, said they requested electric cooperatives to have a 15 to 20 minute load shedding.

Martinez said, so far, power supply in the Visayas is getting better compared to two days ago when the electricity demand was too high for the capacity.

As of 2:40 p.m. yesterday, the system peak in Visayas grid was 1,550 MW while its capacity was 1,515 MW, the NGCP website showed.

She said the Visayas is still exporting 50 MW from the power reserves of Luzon to augment the supply of electricity in the area.*APN

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