By
Lenie Lectura - October 17, 2017
THE Manila Electric
Co.’s (Meralco) latest expectation of this year’s energy-sales growth was
trimmed to 4.5 percent, an official said on Tuesday.
Meralco President Oscar
Reyes said on the sidelines of an executive seminar on Fostering Dynamic
Competition in the Philippine Power Industry that 2017 sales volume may grow
“slightly above 4.5 percent,” but will “not reach 5 percent because it was a
weak first quarter.”
Last month Reyes said
energy-sales volume could grow by “close to 5 percent” for 2017.
Reyes’s latest
projection could be partly blamed on weak first-quarter numbers. He said that
first-quarter sales growth was “very soft.” After which, it “started to gain a
bit of momentum in the second quarter.”
From January to March
this year, energy-sales volume grew to 9,317 gigawatt hours (GWh), or a growth
of only 3 percent, over the same comparative period. This was brought about by
a cooler temperature, an absence of the February 2016 leap-year effect, which
is equivalent to approximately 100GWh lower energy sales, higher inflation,
higher interest rates, a weaker peso and higher fuel prices, among others.
Last year Meralco’s sales
volume grew by close to 8.8 percent at 40,142 GWh. He pointed out that sales
growth last year was strong mainly on account of election-related spending,
among others.
“We have to recognize
that last year was a high-base year,” Reyes said.
Meralco is scheduled to
announce its nine months financial performance next week.
“This quarter, we’ve
been running at around 6 [percent] to 7 percent as we see growth in all
sectors,” Reyes said. “We hope fourth-quarter projected sales will continue to
be healthy.”
Reyes added
July-to-September sales growth was fueled by strong demand across all sectors.
“If you go around, even
in Metro Manila, you’ll see quite a number of developments—hotels, restaurants,
real estate, retail trade, entertainment, semicon [are] doing well; basic
metals are doing well; food and beverage also.”
The Meralco official
had said there is a need to build up adequate capacity to address possible
shortage in power supply because of rising demand.
“I think we don’t want
to raise an alarm. It’s really just a realization that you’re better off with
adequate capacity because it takes time to build. The yellow alerts are a
reality,” Reyes said. “I think it just shows potential vulnerability of the
entire system, and you are better with adequate capacity. If we cut it too
thinly, and there are a bit of delays, then we’re going into a situation as we
move to 2019 to 2022.”
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