Meralco readies commercial test of prepaid electricity service

Business World Online

Posted on July 28, 2013 09:39:01 PM

DISTRIBUTION UTILITY Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) plans to conduct the commercial test of its prepaid electricity service by September, an official said in a chance interview at Hotel InterContinental Manila in Makati City on Thursday last week.

“The integrated system for the prepaid electricity service is going to be delivered to us in September. So we’re doing the commercial pilot by mid-September and that will run until the end of the year,” Alfredo S. Panlilio, Meralco senior vice-president for customer retail services, said when asked for updates on the project.

“The technical pilot test is still ongoing until we receive the integrated platform where we will run the electric meters. So with the commercial pilot, we are going to test the meters; but unlike the technical pilot, we will have live customers,” he explained.

Asked on how the technical test has been going so far, Mr. Panlilio replied: “It’s okay. Initially, we had some issues. It’s more on the debiting and crediting, but we’re working on them.”

For the commercial test, Mr. Panlilio said Meralco is looking at involving 1,000 to 2,000 customers in Angono and other municipalities in the province of Rizal.

“We’ll talk to the customers. It will be live testing and they will give feedback on their experience. We will ask for their preferences. We want to understand their issues and address them before we officially launch the service,” Mr. Panlilio said.

“We hope that by the end of the year we have a good sense already of how the whole system will work for the customers before we proceed with the commercial launch.”

The official said Meralco hopes to do commercial launch early next year.

“We hope that by the first quarter next year, we do a commercial launch to 40,000 customers,” Mr. Panlilio said.

“We’ve been pushing hard for this. Initially, we targeted that by 2013, we should have already launched the service. But on certain developments, you have certain delays and we expected that,” he added.

“What’s more important is we want to make sure that when we officially launch next year, we are confident that we will have already addressed all issues and problems.”

Last January, Mr. Panlilio said Meralco had earmarked $7 million for the prepaid electricity service covering the integrated system and expenditures for the technical and commercial tests. Meralco said in October last year that the prepaid electricity service will use “smart” meters, which are “vital components of the advanced metering system” the company will use. “Smart” meters will enable customers to better manage consumption. Meralco chose General Electric to be system integrator of the advanced metering structure of its prepaid electricity service, and tapped Orga Systems for the billing system and Ecologic Analytics for meter data management.

The utility distributes electricity in Metro Manila, Bulacan, Cavite and Rizal, as well as parts of Batangas, Laguna, Quezon and Pampanga. Its net income jumped by 16.01% to P4.037 billion in the first quarter from P3.480 billion in the same period last year.

Its shares shed one peso or 0.34% to close at P290.80 apiece on Friday last week from P291.80 each on Thursday.

Beacon Electric Asset Holdings, Inc., which has the biggest stake in Meralco, is partly owned by Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co (PLDT). Hastings Holdings, Inc., a unit of PLDT Beneficial Trust Fund subsidiary MediaQuest Holdings, Inc., has a minority stake in BusinessWorld. -- Claire-Ann Marie C. Feliciano   source