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Dealing with Brownouts

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Brownouts are a big part of our lives these days here in Davao, and for others around the Philippines. Especially in Mindanao where Davao is probably the most hard hit city.  That’s why I am writing about it again today.  Last week, Aaron wrote an article about Brownouts on Tuesday, and I wrote a sort of rebuttal to his article on Friday.  I am following up today with an article about what we are doing to deal with Brownouts.

Power Bannks are a life saver
Power Bannks are a life saver

The brownout schedule has become almost unbearable here in Davao, but we are hoping that things will come to an end in a month or so, after the Presidential election.  That has been the case in the past where we have been hit by big brownouts leading up to a Presidential election, with the brownouts ending right after the election.  I don’t know why, but Filipinos seem to expect elections to be accompanied by brownouts!

Currently, we are being warned of up to 11 hours of brownout per day.  We are given a schedule of when those brownouts will happen in our neighborhoods.  The schedule includes a 5 hour brownout in the morning, another 5 hour brownout in the afternoon/evening, and then a supplemental 1 hour brownout some time in the day.  If you think about that, it means that we can have brownout during most waking hours!  The good news is that usually we only get one of those 5 hour brownouts each day, not both, so that is one good thing.  Still, even 5 or 6 hours of brownout is a lot, and you have to develop some plans on how you will deal with it.

Schedule your day

A great way to deal with long brownouts is to make plans.  Look at the brownout schedule, and plan your activities accordingly.  For example, Feyma often needs to go do shopping for groceries, or other items, each day.  If you look at what times the brownouts are scheduled, just go take care of your errands during those times.  I mean, the malls and most stores have air conditioning, and also have industrial scale generators, so if you are in the store when the brownout hits, you are really not affected in most cases.  So, if you have a list of errands to run, take care of those errands during the brownout hours

The Mall

The malls are a favorite brownout hangout for Filipinos.  One strategy that I like to employ is to schedule things like meetings during the brownout times.  If I need to meet people, I usually will meet them at a mall – a coffee shop like Starbucks normally.  So, if my brownout schedule is, say 8 until 12, I will schedule my meeting to start at 9am at the coffee shop.  I will then shower at 8 or so, and hit the road.  This way, I can be away from home for most of the brownout hours.  This is usually quite effective and may help me avoid 2 to 4 hours of brownout, depending on how long my meeting may last.

Rechargeable Lights

Most people use candles during brownouts.  Problem is, that can be quite dangerous.  I know that a number of people in Davao have died recently due to fires that have started from brownout candles.  A friend of a friend died this way just last week.  Quite sad.  We recently purchased some rechargeable LED lighting for the house. We purchased a total of 5 of these lighting units.  The light includes a total of 66 LEDs and it is very bright.  One light unit is plenty to light up an entire room.    The light units were only P350, but were actually on sale for P270, very cheap!

Flashlights

One thing that I do if we have a brownout at night is that I will go out walking for exercise during the brownout.  One of the problems I found with this, though, was that our street is just about totally black during a brownout at night, and I was unable to see a thing!  This is partly due to the eye problems that I have been telling you about, but also because of the darkness from brownout.  When we bought those rechargeable lights that I mentioned previously, they also had some sort of “mini flashlights”.  These are very portable, have around 20 LED lights in them, and are also rechargeable.  We bought 4 or 5 of them also, at P99.95 each.  They are great!  Perfect to carry on a walk around the neighborhood during darkness.

Battery fans

A couple of years ago when we had a month or so with regular brownouts, I purchased a USB powered fan.  You can plug this into a Laptop and run the fan off of your laptop battery, or anything that has a USB connection.  The fan is small, but I find it to be very effective in keeping me cool!  I sometimes feel a little guilty using it, because we only have one.  When I ask Feyma to let me share it with her, she says she does not need a fan.  Makes me feel bad to use it in front of her, but she insists!  I am close to convincing her to get one for herself as well.  At only about P150 for the fan, I feel that you just can’t go wrong!

Power Banks

Power banks are a necessity!  We currently have 3 power banks in the house.  I have one small one that I bought a couple of years ago, but like I say it is quite small and lasts a maximum of a couple hours.  When Aaron was in the States last year, he bought two large capacity power banks that are great.  Those power banks will hold out, I would say, for about 10 hours of use.  I don’t know how long for sure, because they have never run dry.  After a 5 hour brownout, I recharge them to “top off the tanks” for the next long brownout.

We use these power banks to run the USB fan and also to recharge our cell phones during brownouts.  With our cellphones we can get Internet (although it is not very good), Facebook, Spotify to play some music, and that kind of thing.  The Globe 3G mobile Internet works fairly well for Facebook and for Spotify, but for general Internet it just is not too good.

The power banks that we have include two USB ports, a micor USB charging port and an LED flashlight.

Shower

One thing that I have been doing that has been great is that when there is an hour or less until the brownout should end, I will take a shower.  This serves a couple purposes.

  1. It cools me down.
  2. If I have been out getting some exercise during the brownout, it gets me not only cool, but clean too.

Also, if you extend your shower to at least 30 minutes or so, that is 30 brownout minutes when you are comfortable!  It works great for me.

Getting through it

So, we are getting through these long brownouts, and these are some of the strategies that we are using to do it.  Do you have other strategies or ideas?  If so, share them with us so that others can benefit!

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Thanks Bob I have related these to my fiance living there just outside of Davao, I have sent to her a solar radio with USB port to charge her phone but she says it has not arrived yet, is this power outatages effecting the post there as it has been 3 weeks since sending

  2. One of the big concerns during a lengthy brownout is that the fridge/freezer warm up and the stored food deteriorates.

    I’m not sure why you feel that Davao is the worst hit – Tagum, and the rural areas around here, have always been badly affected by power cuts. Having lived here for a little over eight years, I am already on my second generator. I will run the generator for power cuts during darkness, so that we have light and my students can study, During daylight I will only run the generator if absolutely necessary – to maintain fridge/freezer temperature etc.

    I have three UPS units to power computer equipment, and am still considering purchasing more. The UPS on my broadband router will hold up for several hours, so that we still have Internet access. Previously, the Globe telephone exchange would go down as soon as the power was cut – that is no longer the case.

    The malls here will turn off the aircon, elevators and lifts during brownouts, so they do not provide the refuge which you enjoy in Davao. I detest walking down a stationary elevator – the parallel lines on the steps do wierd things to my eyes.

    As for the led emergency lights – yes, I have some, but the batteries fail after about six months and I have found it impossible to buy replacements. Clearly, you are intended to throw the whole unit away when the battery expires.

    We have a small diesel-powered power station across the other side of the highway from where we live. For the last year it has not been operating because the local electrical co-op had not been paying the bills. However, it has been running again in the last week – what is the most annoying is that while we have a powercut, and open all the doors and windows for ventilation, we have to suffer from the noise and pollution it produces.

    • Hi Peter – I am not overly concerned about the refrigeration at this point. If the brownouts went longer it would be a concern. Modern refrigerators, though, can handle being off for a number of hours if they are not being opened. So, it is not a huge concern for me, at least not now.

      The news is that Davao City has been hit worst. Another commenter “TagumTim” says that brownouts in Tagum are only 2 hours, and ours have been at least 5, so that is worse… maybe Tim and the news are wrong? If so, let me know more. Are you experiencing 5+ hours daily?

      Good for us, our local malls run full scale during brownout, including aircon. It brings in a lot of customers for them! 🙂

      I won’t mind throwing the LED lighting away after 6 months if necessary, they are cheap and will have served their purpose after that time, to me anyway.

      Hang in there!

      • In the last week, our cuts have only been for a couple of hours, but before that we had about a month of 2 hour plus 3 hour cuts each day.

        Indeed, a good ref, unopened, can maintain reasonable temperatures. However, with longer powercuts, it’s more than likely to span a mealtime, and I haven’t yet managed to convince the Filipinos about the importance of minimising ref opening!

        As for the emergency lights – PHP3000 may be cheap, but I find it hard to justify throwing it away after six months just because a PHP200 battery has expired.

        • The lights are not PHP3000. They are PHP300. Big difference. I don’t want to throw them away, but if the batteries cannot be recharged and they can’t be replaced, what choice is there?

          But, the lights claim to have a lifetime of 500 recharges. If that is the case, it would be probably a few years before they go bad. Since this is my first experience with them, we’ll see how they do.

    • Peter, why do you live there? I live in visyan Bohol but we don’t have nearly the problems you have. We were without electricity for a month during Yolanda but who wasn’t hit. Plus we had the earthquake problems.

      The malls were a popular hangout as they are in Davao during brownouts. But the brownouts here are infrequent. The power supply is pretty stable.

      Rusty

  3. Hello again Bob.

    Got to agree that contingency plans are great for both emergencies and inconveniences no matter were you are.

    I suppose that it was just blind luck, but my wife’s family are from Luzon. Not so many brownouts there. I believe there are more than I notice, but I’m outside most of the time. None of the houses we stay in have air conditioning, but I don’t notice. Mother-in-Law’s farmhouse can get stuffy, but there’s a covered dirty kitchen and some nice shade trees out back. Our boarding house in town has very high ceilings and skylights. It’s usually very comfortable in there. There are also a couple of balconies to sit on and catch the mountain breezes. Some folks will set up fans, but I never feel the need to sit in front of them.

    The comments on one of the other brownout articles mentioned the high cost of setting up a completely solar powered home. I’ve found that to be true. We researched a solar / wind hybrid system for our ranch. Initial costs hit the million peso mark that you mentioned. I’ve since become enamored of the many solar powered gadgets available now. From battery chargers for cell phones and tablets to flashlights, even farm machinery like water pumps.

    We’ll stay connected to the grid, but like you, have some contingencies lined up.

    Take care,
    Pete

    • Hi Pete – I think that at this point it is wise to stay on grid but have gadgets that will keep you going for brownouts. Unless the current brownout situation becomes the norm, I see no reason to buy a generator or invest in solar power. The costs are just too high.

  4. Hello Bob,

    I have two solar rechargeable lights that I use during night brownouts. Other than that I just live with it because here in Tagum City the brownouts have only been 2 hours mostly.

    My only complaint is that the schedule here with DANECO (Davao Del Norte Electrical Cooperative) seems a bit chaotic at times coming at all times of the day and night. We even had an hour brownout one night at midnight.

    • Hi Tim – Thanks for commenting and sharing your Tagum experience. Luckily for us here in the City, the published brownout schedules have been pretty good and accurate, it is kind of a lifesaver to know when it is likely to be coming. We have had plenty of middle of the night brownouts too, but they are scheduled, so we expected them. 🙂

  5. A million pesos for a solar system?

    One 100W solar panel = P 3500
    One 2500W inverter = P 17000
    One 100 a/h battery = P 5400
    One 20 A charge controller = P 1000
    One metre of #10 wire = P 36

    Add to these, say 20% miscellaneous.
    Hire the brother-in-law to install.

    Conclusion: for less than P 200 k, you have a decent size (say 2000W) system.

    This requires doing the purchasing, transport, building the solar shed etc. All by yourself with some help.
    It’s not that hard to do, plus it’s very interesting.

    All of these prices are from Palawan. It’s slightly cheaper on bigger islands.

    • Nice breakdown Palawan Bob. But, since I know nothing about wiring a house, or electronic components, I’d have no way of knowing that I’m buying the right stuff. Or that what I’m buying is not junk. I have no in-laws that I would trust wiring a place that I intend to sleep at night.

      So, I priced out commercial systems, and $20,000, or a million pesos seemed to be the average cost for a system that would run a small farmhouse. A very few lights, a refrigerator, computer, fans and such. Getting the individual solar gadgetry makes more sense for us. I’m keen on getting a solar water pump. That is to get water from the well to the overhead gravity fed tank, and for the water tanks for the livestock during the dry season.

      Take care,
      Pete

  7. There are things that people can do to save the battery on the mobile phone during a brownout.

    First of all, turn of the WIFI. The more your phone is searching for WIFI, the more your battery will run down. Lets face it, if your WIFI in the house is using the same electricity supply it is not going to be working.

    Secondly, turn of the location services (Privacy on an Iphone) as this uses an incredible amount of battery life.

    Carry out these 2 small items then you should be able to make any phone last a 5 hour brownout.

    • Yes, I am aware. I told Mac that it takes months to get to Davao, which is where he is sending it to. And, it does take months. Even if it gets to Manila in a day, it still takes months! 🙂

  9. Great ideas and I will use a few, I am surprised that you do not use a generator. They are not that expensive and allow most functions to continue without trouble. And u do not need to buy one that covers everything in the house. When ours is operating we do not iron cloths, not hot showers and the hot water dispenser in the kitchen is turned off and AC unit is used only limited if any. That way we did not need a large unit. other than the generator only item needed is a good switch that disconnects the outside power company and connects the generator and vie verser.

    • HI Luke – I have been over the generator thing many times, perhaps you did not see it. On average, in DAvao, we get about 15 minutes per year of brownouts. I just can’t see spending P50k to P150k on a generator to save myself from 15 minutes of inconvenience each year.

    • I would agree on a 15 min brown out per year but here where I live it is normally 2 to 4 hours every few days, and sometime several times in a day and night. Plus I need a CPAP to sleep or I have health issues.

    • As an fyi, I found a couple of silent generators on lazada, one pumps out between 4.5 to 5, while the other one 5 to 5.5. It’s really more than enough for a house! but you’re right, at 50k php its a pretty penny. I plan to purchase one as its not only my vehicle for income but also a source of entertainment. Who knows when you/ a friend/family needs one in an emergency? If you can afford it, it’s a good investment. Either way, thanks for the article sir. As always highly enlightening. As an aside, I hope you can update us on Paul.

  10. I live in Luzon, so don’t have to suffer the same frequent or extended “brownouts” that Bob is describing in Mindanao.
    We do still get the occasional power interruption, so I invested in a neat little 5kVa Honda diesel generator and diverter switch.
    The total cost was a little under PhP. 25,000 and provides all power we need at the push of a button. Works great, easy to install and the running costs are tiny.

  11. Hi Bob, I bought a generator 8 years ago just in case we have a brown out,
    Never used it once ? Still it’s there if I ever want to use it one of the pluses
    About living in Manila , any news about Paul Thompson hope that he’s okay,
    Derek in pasig.

  12. Re Generators. The latest one I purchased was one of the many ‘Chinese’ 5KW diesel devices – it cost PHP40,000 from Davao Diamond. I have it wired into the house via a changeover switch.

    It feeds the lighting circuits and ‘convenience’ outlet circuits, but not the water heater or the electric double oven. Even so, if someone turns the electric kettle on, the voltage dips a little.

    The generator may be described as ‘Silent’ and may even have that word emblazoned on the case, but to me it still seems b****y loud! I suspect that the ‘silent’ simply relates to the fact that it has a steel case around it!

    I would love to know where you can buy a genuine Honda 5KW unit for PHP25k. When I enquired about Hondas, they started at around 60k, and were petrol-powered, not diesel.

    I do have a small 2KW petrol generator that we use at the beach house – no power utility connection there!

    I wouldn’t trust any Filipino to wire any property of mine – I’ve seen the methods they use! Still, with a degree in Electrical/Electronic engineering, I have a vague idea what I’m up to!

    Re Mail delivery: When I first met Ruby online, I sent her a small package of a couple of chocolate bars – that was in May 2007. In January 2008 (when I was already living here) Ruby received a call from the Tagum post office to say that she had a package for collection. We didn’t eat the chocolate – I think that the ants had beaten us to it!

    • I bought the diesel generator around 3 years ago, for PhP 22k, from a Korean guy who was returning home. The generator had only 31 hours operating hours at the time of purchase. Sure, I got a good deal!

      WRT your views on Chinese and Filipino manufacturing quality and workmanship, your entitled to your views, but I don’t want to go there.

  13. Hi Bob,

    Another good article! The suggestions you made in the article about bathing and going to the mall were really spot on. On our visits, we use some of the same strategies, because Mama’s house does not have air conditioning. We also bought a kiddie pool for our boys so they could play in it, but also to keep them from getting too hot. That is why I asked about water pressure on AJ’s article. That cold Filipino tap water can sometimes be a blessing.

    Filipino homes are designed for ventilation and cool off better in the evenings, but in the mid-day they get really hot with or without working electric fans. This is a good time to do the grocery or other shopping. I hope the brownout situation improves.

    Peace

    Jay

    • Hi Jay. Today is a happy Monday. The coal fired plant in Davao is back online today and the brownout problem should be greatly reduced. Whatever the problem was has been repaired. Hooray.

  14. It’s seems quite normal to have regular brown outs these days.. It seems most have accepted the inconvenience to their lives, but honestly, what really is cause of the problem?

    • Hi Jack – Depends on where you are. For example, here in Davao where I live the problem was primarily because a coal fire plant had some problems and had to be shut down for repairs. In CdO and Iligan, and much of Mindanao is is tue to drought affecting the hybro plants.

  15. Jack – My take on the problem here in Mindanao, and all over the country for that matter, is the lack of attention that the government has paid to the infrastructure of the country including the electrical grid, the massive explosion of the Internet and related devices which require power, the turbulence of government over the past 30 years, and, this one you can never leave out of the discussion, corruption, fraud, waste, and abuse at many levels of the government.

    To their credit, the Filipino people have done what they always do when confronted with a problem, made the best of the resources at their disposal (installing generators at all major retail and business hubs) and persevering in the face of hardship.

  17. i live already 8 years in davao(close by toril) I dont know why (maybe the area is to small to matter for the electrical company) but we almost never experience brownouts. only an occasional tunderstorm makes one happen. but then within an hour or so the light is back on.

  18. Just wire in a Generator and problem solved that’s what I did. You don’t need a huge one just a small one to run fans and a few lights and what not.

      • Yeah I hear you Bob. Some places here in the Philippines see no interruption and some places like here in Camiling Tarlac where I am see brownouts 4 to 5 brownouts a week and sometimes all day or all night. Do you know why this happens??

        • Yes, I understand that. Since i wrote the article i was just commenting on my situation which is the basis of what i wrote. I did not suggest buying a generator because in my case it would be really a waste of money.

  20. Here in Bukidonon I have been using a solar system that is made up of 2x60w solar panels a 100Ah deep cycle battery and a charge controller. This set up illuminates my office, indoor and outdoor lights all with 3W LED 12V lights and I can charge my power banks/cell phones.
    This is but an adjunct to the grid tie system that has been running for over 3 years I have not paid an electricity bill in that time. Mind you we live in an area that doesn’t require air con or fans

  21. Hey Bob isn’t there portable Generators available to purchase ? Again why are there so many blackout’s exactly is the power companies that bad ? I am moving to South Cotabato in April 2019

    • That is an old article where you are commenting. These days we experience less than 30 minutes per year of brownouts in Davao. I don’t consider the price of a generator to be worth it to ver 30 minutes per year.