A 13-hour brownout yesterday forced thousands of Bohol residents to stay and eat at the malls or the beach.

The power interruption affected all the consumers of Bohol Electric Cooperative I and II, and Bohol Light Company, Inc. (BLCI).

In the advisory issued on Tuesday, the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) informed that entire Bohol would experience power interruption from 5 a.m. to 6 p.m. yesterday because of the shutdown of the shutdown of the 138-kilovolt Maasin-Ubay submarine cable line for its annual preventive maintenance including the 100-megavolt-ampere transformer and other equipment at Ubay Substation.

However, by 6 p.m. yesterday, the NGCP issued another advisory informing that the power interruption would be extended up to 7 p.m. since they are still working on the line configuration from Corella-Tagbilaran and Tagbilaran 69kV line sections.

By 7 p.m., the NGCP issued another advisory informing that the power interruption would further be extended up to 8 p.m.

NGCP explained that as of 7 pm., line configuration from Corella-Tagbilaran and Tagbilaran 69kV line sections had been completed already, but the lines could not be re-energized because of a breaker problem on the part of BLCI.

It was the second power interruption in 15 days and the first to cover entire Bohol this year.

Power interruptions in parts of Bohol, affecting only consumers of BOHECO II, were experienced on February 18.

The power interruptions then only spanned from 6-7 a.m. and 4-5 p.m.

It was only due to maintenance works along the 69-kV Ubay-Alicia-Garcia line.

The Bohol Energy Development Advisory Group (BEDAG) continues to find possible sources of renewable energy to establish an inland source of power supply for Bohol to be independent from the power source in Leyte.

So far, there had been 12 companies that expressed interest to invest on possible Bohol-based power generation facility to produce 60-70 megawatts of electricity that will be enough to provide for the consumption of the entire province.

Although the concept had already been proposed about five to six years ago, the provincial government became more aggressive on tapping local sources of power supply until BEDAG was formed last year, following the blackout experienced for over a month after Supertyphoon Yolanda ravaged the transmission lines and even the power generation plant in Leyte which is the main source of power supply for Bohol.