By Rey Anthony Chiu | 05:18 PM January 24, 2022
The year 2022 presented a gloomy prospect for over 75,000 households in Bohol, with no homes to start with, and no chances of getting back their power connections even if the power supply in the province would have normalized.
The number however does not include Tagbilaran City, which has Bohol Light Company Incorporated (BLCI) serving the city’s power needs.
In a post typhoon Odette Power Restoration Report, Bohol Electric Cooperative I, which serves 26 towns, said that a total of 28,395 houses with active connections are now permanently cut off, after Odette totally damaged these houses that reconnecting the lines is impossible.
Boheco I serves the towns of Panglao and Dauis in Panglao island, Baclayon, Alburquerque, Loay, Lila and Dimiao, Corella, Sikatuna, Loboc, Sevilla, Bilar, Batuan, Carmen, Sagbayan, Clarin, Inabanga, Tubigon, Calape, Loon, Maribojoc, Antequera, San Isidro, Catigbian, Balilihan and Cortes.
On the other hand, Boheco II which has 21 towns under its franchise declared 47,428 of their members’ houses also totally damaged.
These include the towns of Valencia, Garcia Hernandez, Jagna, Duero Guindulman, Anda, Candijay, Mabini, Alicia, Pilar, Sierra Bullones, San Miguel, Ubay, Carlos P. Garcia, Bien Unido, Trinidad, Dagohoy, Danao, Buenavista, Getafe and Talibon.
Typhoon Odette, when she came to hit Bohol last December 16, pursued a general direction hitting most of Boheco 2 franchise areas.
The storm, which has 480 kilometer cloud cover from the center, also whipped Boheco 1 towns, but the most sustained damage was in the northeastern parts of the island where the eye of the storm passed.
The storm which lashed at the site where most of Bohol’s power supply is sent from Leyte, also toppled two special transmission towers, which cut the power supply to Bohol.
The special towers, the tallest in the country strings 138 KV high tension transmission wires designed to withstand 100 kilometer winds, hang some 800 meters above the channel dividing Carlos P. Garcia island to mainland Bohol.
The 138 KV lines come from a receiving substation in Carlos P. Garcia from a submarine cable and goes overhead, across the channel.
As the 138 KV becomes unavailable, Bohol is left to temporarily rely on a standby power barge designed with a generating capacity of 32 KV, and is giving out 17 KV for local requirements not that thousands of power posts are still down.
Another potential source of local power is the Dampas Diesel Power Plant, which can generate additional power for local use.
The National Grid Corporation of the Philippines has set to finish fixing the toppled special towers by April and their Emergency Restorations System towers to quickly replace critical power posts which had to be back online to make power get to other un-energized areas in the province.
By April too, even if Bohol is ready to receive power from the national transmission company, the owners of over 75,000 houses could only hope they can rebuild that fast to get normal power back, three months from now. (rahc/PIA-7/Bohol)