More Electric and Power Corporation (MORE Power), Iloilo City’s sole power distributor, had a groundbreaking and time capsule-laying ceremony for the new 33MVA City Proper Substation and Control Center on Tuesday, August 16.
The construction of the new substation and control center is one of the major capacity projects of the company which will give more room for investments in the metropolis.
This will replace the decades-old facilities MORE Power inherited from the previous distribution utility which are “critically-loaded and sometimes exceed its rated limit during peak hours,” said Engr. Pat Cabangisan, MORE Power assistant vice president for project development and management.
This is the reason why MORE Power didn’t withhold in investing billions into CapEx projects that will proportionately respond to the needs of the growing city. We need facilities that are capable, reliable, and modernized because we realized that the booming economy of Iloilo city cannot be put on hold due to issues in power,” Cabangisan said.
The City Proper substation project, which is in partnership with Hansei Corporation, will give capacity, reliability, and modernity to the electricity distribution system. The Control Center will be equipped with an automation system that will be able to remotely control the substations and reclosers through a Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) system.
Wired and wireless communication will also be integrated into substation system to ensure the resiliency of the SCADA network.
MORE Power will utilize state-of-the-art software from Canada to intelligently oversee the system and help operators in decision-making for the best response during power outages.
MORE Power President Roel Z. Castro said that this project is part of the P1.9 billion investment of the company for the modernization of Iloilo City distribution system, and they’re adding P1 billion more to their CapEx in the next two and a half years.
Castro added that aside from modernizing the distribution system, they’re also looking for ways to find the cheapest power supply in the market so that they can maintain the low rates for consumers.
“One thing I can assure the public is that as we are increasing and making sure that the capacity for the city is adequate, we are always looking for ways every day to make sure that we are able to get the lowest rate in the market so that we could pass it on to our consumers,” Castro stressed.
“We still continue with our commitment and consumers have an assurance that MORE Power will really make sure that here in Iloilo, we will have one of the best electric services in the country,” Castro added.
Francis Cruz, who represented Mayor Jerry Treñas, cited improvements since MORE Power took over the city’s power distribution services.
“Back then, we had brownouts, we had outages. Because back then, there were no upgrades. We have the highest power cost in the country. Now we have the lowest power cost in the country. Thank you to MORE. Thank you to Roel so much for that. This is a manifestation of true, deeply rooted public and private partnerships. We should remember that as MORE would provide lower power costs, would provide reliable, stable power. It would be easy for us also to bring in investors,” Cruz said.
