Published
April 15, 2017, 10:00 PM By Myrna M. Velasco
The strike of natural
calamities had also been serving as “testing ground” on the resiliency of
energy facilities, and through the years, the sector’s winners and losers have been
manifesting.
Power utility giant
Manila Electric Company (Meralco), for its part, has noted some improvements on
its disaster-response, made evident anew in last week’s stream of earthquakes
that plagued Batangas province – one of its service areas which also have
spiraling effect all throughout its franchise domain that stretches up to Metro
Manila.
The utility firm said
it sustained “no damage” at its facilities and networks and despite the
enforcement of automatic load dropping (ALD) or rolling brownouts following the
quakes’ jolt, electricity service had been restored with dispatch at its
service areas.
Meralco Assistant Vice
President Joe Zaldarriaga said its network’s load had dropped by roughly 900
megawatts,” and that affected around 1.2 million of its customers.
But swift restoration
of service was made possible, he emphasized, “as there was no reported damage
as far as the Meralco facilities are concerned.”
With the recurrence of
“yellow alert” condition in Luzon grid or the circumstance where reserves in
the system are insufficient due to the number of power generating plants
affected, the company also has instantaneous response on the required
mobilization of the interruptible load program (ILP) participants so they can
de-load from the grid at the quickest interval.
On this week’s extreme
tightening of supply, Zaldarriaga said “we have currently on standby around 130
megawatts of ILP capability,” that may be activated if the system requires them
so.
Disasters are not the
only “extraordinary events” that Meralco has been preparing for, but it wants
to integrate innovation and digitalization in its chain of services and
“customer feedback mechanism” so it can further improve its resource offers to
end-users.
The company is
discerning enough that competition will continually disrupt traditional
business models, thus, it is now placing higher bets on exercising
“superiority” not just on affordable power rates but more on innovative and
improved services to customers.
No less than Meralco
Chairman Manuel V. Pangilinan has inferred that this is the business case that
has been keeping the utility firm’s executives awake at night – stepping up the
degree of competition and service quality on both the information
technology (IT) and operational technology (OT) domains of power
distribution.
“Meralco fully
recognizes the fast-transforming customer, as well as the evolving business and
industry landscape in an increasingly demanding and competitive global
economy,” he stressed.
Pangilinan thus noted
that such has been prompting the company “to invest heavily in its power
distribution and customer-facing facilities, on innovation and digital
technology.”
In Meralco’s
century-stretch history, it judiciously served customers with traditionally
accepted business practices, but with the integration of IT already advancing
into power markets, utilities have also been embracing transformative changes
in their service offers and customer engagements.
Just recently, the
utility firm unveiled four customer-centric services in the suite of business
approaches that it wants to offer to subscribers en route to its R40-billion
long-term smart grid journey.
These digital
transformation marketing tools and offers will be the: “I Join” that shall
enable customers to start and track their applications online; “I Pay” which
digitizes the utility firm’s billing system and enhances capacity of online
payments; “I Ask” that unlocks self-service knowledge database for customers
and will also allow them to chat directly with a live agent; and “I Need
Repair” that sets competence for Meralco to inform its customers on power
outages and restoration via short messaging system, electronic mails or push
messages.
Meralco Senior Vice
President Alfredo S. Panlilio indicated that these technologies will
“fundamentally change the way Meralco interacts with its customers.”
He added “we will
ensure that we are able to meet our changing customer needs by opening new
digital channels, providing more information and insights and offering more
innovative products and services.”
The “disruptive”
business models being introduced by Meralco are eventually seen extending into
“smart homes” – with the aid of feasible policy and regulatory frameworks.
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