The Albay Electric Cooperative, Inc. (ALECO) announced a massive clearing operation on Thursday, May 23, to address power line tripping and other technical issues that lead to frequent outages.
ALECO Board Vice President Cezar Bordeos, Jr. said their cooperative does not intend to cause inconvenience, but had to repair their “reclosers,” which has been conking out recently.
In electric power distribution, reclosers are types of switchgears designed to detect and interrupt transient faults or abnormality in the supply of electricity.
ALECO explained that the 12-hour power interruption from 6am to 6pm last Friday, May 17, had been scheduled for clearing operations and maintenance of their system.
Hundreds of electricity consumers particularly in urban areas complained about this. The brownout was even extended to three more hours when a delivery truck hit a primary line near the Philippine National Police (PNP) headquarters in Legazpi City.
Engr. Mark Jessan Lucilo, head of ALECO’s technical team, said a recloser is too sensitive that whenever electrical grounding occurs, it automatically shuts down.
Grounding of power lines may happen when branches, twigs, leaves, animals, and other things touch these lines.
Due to high humidity or warm weather these days, more cooling appliances have also been utilized by consumers, thus overload or backing down of power plants happen from time to time.
ALECO admits it has recorded more power interruptions in April this year.
One Stop Shop
To effectively address customer complaints, ALECO has also recently launched a new centralized facility or service hub, where its member-consumer-owners (MCOs) can access a wide array of essential services.
The cooperative introduced its ALECO One Stop Shop (AOSS) system, which aims to streamline services, improve customer convenience, and foster community engagement in a single location, according to Candy Brecia-Apostol, chief of ALECO’s Members Services Division.
The AOSS teams will conduct onsite visits to communities for massive information and education campaign about their lifeline rates, how to avail of the five percent discount for senior citizens, as well as the updating and correction of customer billing names or addresses.
They will also hold pre-membership seminars, talk about troubleshooting, new connection installations, entertain walk-in consumer complaints and concerns. They will also receive and release application forms for electric services and discounts.
The AOSS hopes to reach at least 20 percent of the population from the 720 barangays across Albay.
ALECO is registered with the National Electrification Administration (NEA) and has at least 288,000 MCOs. The cooperative is being run by 329 officers and employees, including technical personnel and linemen.
“By bringing essential services directly to the communities we serve, we eliminate the need for the MCOs to travel long distances to access our services,” ALECO Institutional Services Department (ISD) head Haysli Lucilo said.
“The process will also reduce waiting time, eliminate red tape,” she added.
Early this year, ALECO also opened their drive-thru payment center for customers to settle their bills conveniently.