Electricity was restored in Tagbilaran City on Friday night but a 6-hour rotational brownout was also implemented amid acute power deficiency throughout Bohol mainly due to the shutdown of a quake-struck geothermal power plant in Leyte, the province’s main energy source.

The power restoration followed after the Bohol Light Company Inc. (BLCI) started to harness energy from the privately owned Bohol Diesel Power Plant (BDPP) in Barangay Dampas, said Provincial Administrator Atty. John Boiser.

SPC Island Power Corp. which owns the BDPP was given provisional authority to operate by the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) on Friday afternoon.

The BDPP’s capacity to release power to the province’s capital was granted following an appeal made by the Bohol Provincial Board.

The request was also expedited through communication efforts of Gov. Edgar Chatto, who is in Canada for an official function, to coordinate with national energy officials.

According to Boiser, the BDPP can generate up to 12 megawatts which is then alternately distributed by the BLCI to its consumers in Tagbilaran City.

The BOHECO 1 also started to ration electricity to consumers in Maribojoc and Calape on Friday night, said Boiser.

Meanwhile, the power barge 103 of Trans-Asia Power Inc. in Mactan is set to be deployed in Cortes and utilized by the province, said Boiser.

However, no timeline on its availability has been disclosed yet.

The power outage that besets Bohol came after a 6.5-magnitude tremor shook Leyte on Thursday damaging a geothermal power plant in Tongonan, Leyte.

The said power plant remained to be the main energy source of Bohol.

In Cebu and Samar, power interruptions were also experienced in the aftermath of the strong earthquake that hit eight kilometers southwest of Jaro town in Leyte.

The tremor struck at a shallow depth of two km. making it “destructive,” said the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology. (Rey Tutas)