Danessa Rivera (The Philippine Star)
- March 12, 2018 - 12:00am
MANILA, Philippines — Manila
Electric Co. (Meralco) will continue to disrupt its traditional business and
adopt new technologies to serve the changing needs of its customers, the
company’s top official said.
During the 7th Meralco Luminaries,
Meralco president Oscar Reyes said innovation in technology is constantly changing
the demands of customers in its 115 years in service.
“We are living in a period of truly
great disruptions – new technologies, a quantum shift to digital, and with
these, the significantly changing profile of a new generation of customers –
high tech, digital, obsessed with new devices and gadgets, very demanding
and emphatic in what they want and how they say it- on Twitter, Instagram, and
other social media,” he said.
Taking note of the changes, Meralco
is transforming itself from a distribution utility to become an “End-to-End
Energy Solutions Partner” to its customers, Reyes said.
“We in Meralco are openly embracing
these disruptions, and are even disrupting ourselves,” he added.
In the legacy distribution business,
Meralco is now offering smart meters, smart grid, and smart cities in
collaboration with developers.
Meralco has secured approvals to
launch meters under its Prepaid Retail Electric Service (PRES) and is awaiting
the go signal to roll out more prepaid meters and to implement its Advanced
Metering Infrastructure.
These projects form part Meralco’s
Smart Grid journey to 2027, which lays down plans for technology innovations to
improve operations and services.
In 2017, Meralco embarked on its
digital pivot by investing heavily on new technologies to cope up with the
changing business landscape and customer requirements towards a digital future.
This is in anticipation of customer
transformation as well as technological transformation among power utilities
brought about by the world wide web.
In power generation, Meralco has set
up its power generating subsidiary Meralco PowerGen Corp. (MGen), which is
developing the country’s first super critical and the first ultra super
critical coal-fired plants in Mauban and Atimonan, Quezon.
These are the 455-MW San
Buenaventura Power Ltd. Co. super critical coal-fired power plant in Mauban, a
project with New Growth BV, a subsidiary of the Electricity Generating Public
Co. Ltd. or EGCO Group of Thailand.
The 2x600-MW ultra supercritical
coal-fired power plant, meanwhile, is under MGen’s wholly-owned subsidiary
Atimonan One Energy Inc.
In renewables, Reyes said the power
distributor is signing up the lowest priced non-subsidized and non-feed in
tariff (FIT) based solar and wind plants under power supply agreements (PSAs).
So far, Meralco has submitted three
solar PSAs with Energy Regulatory Commission for approval.
The first two contracts involve
a 50-MW supply from Solar Philippines Tanauan Corp. at a P5.39 per
kilowatt-hour (kwh) rate and another 50-MW supply from PowerSource First
Bulacan Solar Inc. at P4.69 per kwh.
The other PSA was contracted with
Solar Philippines Tarlac Corp. earlier this month, covering an 85-MW supply at
a rate of P2.9999 per kwh starting 2018.
It is currently undertaking a price
challenge for another 50-MW offer from Pilipinas Newton Energy Corp., which
pitched a rate of P2.98 per kwh.
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