NEA tells co-ops to do mapping of areas without electricity

MANILA, Philippines  -The National Electrification Administration (NEA) has called on the country’s 121 electric cooperatives to identify electrification solutions for barangays without 24/7 access to power through a soon-to-be-launched data entry template in a bid to increase household electrification nationwide.

According to the NEA, its Connections Data Entry Template will help accurately identify areas with low-level electrification to allow more funding allocations and prioritization.

This comes after NEA Administrator Antonio Mariano Almeda issued a memorandum encouraging electric cooperatives to “harmonize their targets and monitor accomplishments” toward the national government’s total electrification goal.

Under the state-owned corporation’s 2028 Total Electrification Plan, it aims to increase potential customer connections under the service areas of electric cooperatives by 1,359,610.

As of November, the number of households with power access within the electric cooperatives’ respective service areas stood at 16,827,244 for an electrification level of 88.81 percent.

The NEA also noted that more detailed projections for each power cooperative would be uploaded on the NEA’s online portal and Barangay Energization Matrix by January.

Earlier this year, the NEA announced its partnership with Cisco Philippines to develop a digital dashboard command center that will help improve service reliability of the country’s electric cooperatives.

“We will be able to identify in one province what is already covered by a distribution line, and we can also see what is not yet covered. Without this kind of information, we will just be relying on information that electric cooperatives will be giving us from the ground,” Almeda had said.

At present, the NEA said only 89 percent of Filipino homes had access to power.