Strong economy, spending boost power sales

Increasing energy demand from gadget-wielding consumers and expanding institutional customers are driving the country’s largest power distributor to expand and further improve its network, officials of Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) said.

Energy sales rose by 5 percent, Meralco SVP and head for customer retail services Al Panlilio said on the sidelines of the Asia CEO Forum in Makati City. Year-to-date, Meralco’s energy sales reached 25,336 gigawatt-hours (GWh) as of the end of September, up by 4.6 percent growth from year-ago level.

Energy sales for September this year, alone, reached 2,870 Gwh, up by 5.9 percent from the level in the same month last year.

Such growth puts the company “on track” with full year targets, he said without delving into details, ahead of the company’s third-quarter financial briefing today.

Panlilio attributed the strong energy growth to the expansion of the real estate and BPO sectors, the frequent gadget upgrading by consumers and increased electricity-guzzling activities that are supported by the strong growth of the domestic economy.

Anticipating demand from the likes of the 120-hectare Entertainment City, (which could add P3.6 billion to the power distributor’s annual sales) got Meralco into investing P1.16 billion in the soon-to-be-built Pagcor-1 substation in Parañaque City.

On other projects, Meralco first VP and head for regulatory management Ivanna Dela Peña announced three recently-completed projects in a presentation at the Philippine Business Conference in Manila.

The first is  the Calamba Premier Industrial Park (CPIP) 115 kilo-volt (kV), which was commissioned on Sept. 27. The line benefits major customers such as Air Liquide, Samsung and other locators in the CPIP in Laguna.

Second is the Laguna Bel-Air substation in Sta. Rosa City, Laguna, which was commissioned on Sept. 29.  The project will relieve critical loading in nearby substations and will serve the growing power requirements of customers in Biñan and Sta. Rosa. It will also help lower technical losses, dela Peña said.

The third project that went online on Sept. 30 involved the commissioning of the second power transformer at Carmelray substation. This is seen to relieve critical loading and address growing power demand. Major customers benefiting from the project include Toshiba Information Eqpt., San Miguel Corp., Bayer Phils., Coca-Cola Bottlers Phils., Epson Precision Phils. and Uniden Electronics.