Published December 21, 2016, 10:01
PM By Myrna
M. Velasco
It will be a robust performance for
Manila Electric Company (Meralco) this year, at projected 8.1-percent growth in
sales from a leaner 6.0-percent level in 2015.
Meralco Senior Vice President
Alfredo S. Panlilio noted that the sales growth was generally propelled by
demand expansion – especially in the initial months of the year.
“It’s going to be roughly 39,600 GWh
(gigawatt hours) and if you add CEDC (Clark Electric Distribution
Corporation), at roughly about 500 GWh, it will exceed the 40,000 GWh on
consolidated basis,” he said.
Panlilio stressed this will be the
first time that the utility firm “will be breaching the 40,000 GWh level,” of
growth in sales.
He explained that the increase in
sales is relatively heftier “because the first half was high…we had a double
digit growth until July at average 10 percent.”
Sales just tapered off in the latter
months because of cooler weather, resulting in a little bit depressed demand.
But he emphasized that prospects for
next year will still be “rosy’, although sales growth may be lower because
performance will be coming from a higher base this 2016.
“If you look at the construction
happening on the residential side, still you see a lot of buildings being
constructed,” the Meralco executive said.
He further cited that on the
commercial side, “we have Tiger Okada which is coming up.”
At just its soft launching, the
demand was already at 1.0GWh, but this is expected ramping up to 15-16 GWh at
its targeted full commercial operations next year.
Demand expansion in the residential
segment is similarly on robust mode, with more connections being targeted even
with the utility firm’s prepaid metering system.
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