Meralco says collab with coops would cut system losses
Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) said potential partnerships with more cooperatives could lead to lower rates for consumers, as fresh funds from the utility giant could cut system losses to single digits.
Arnel Casanova, senior vice president and head of strategic distribution utility partnerships at Meralco, said many electric cooperatives report double-digit system losses, even as high as 24 percent.
“[When] Meralco comes in, the double-digit system losses of the electric companies will be dropping down to single-digit,” he said in a television interview on Thursday.
“If you are able to lower that to even a single-digit, that’s worth billions of pesos of savings for the consumers themselves. So you get reliable power, efficient economic utility and cheaper power,” he added.
Casanova said system loss charges cover only about 5 percent of Meralco power bills.
System loss is the difference between electricity entering a distribution network and the amount eventually billed to customers.
It covers technical losses caused by resistance in power lines, transformers and aging equipment as well as nontechnical losses from electricity theft, illegal connections, defective meters and billing errors.
Meralco, the country’s biggest power distributor, has been wooing some power cooperatives, including South Cotabato II Electric Cooperative and Batangas II Electric Cooperative.
Casanova said it has been part of the Pangilinan-led group’s goal to support smaller industry players, injecting them with new capital to strengthen and modernize their infrastructure. This also involves equipping them with smart systems, smart grids and line upgrades.
“Mr. Pangilinan has made it a priority that Meralco must be able to empower electric cooperatives so that the industries could move to the countryside,” he said, referring to Meralco chair Manuel V. Pangilinan.
