Danessa Rivera (The Philippine Star)
- May 4, 2018 - 12:00am
MANILA, Philippines — State-run
National Electrification Administration (NEA) recorded 93,324 new consumer
connections in the first two months or 20 percent of full year 2018 target.
This brings the overall level of
energization at 12,279,816.
Of the new connections, 34,580 are
located in Mindanao, 34,356 in Luzon, and 24,388 in Visayas.
However, NEA administrator Edgardo
Masongsong said there is still a lot of work that needs to be done to close the
electricity access gap in rural and remote communities.
“While we put a lot of premium on
member-consumer-owners and the promotion of their rights as electricity
end-users, we remain steadfast in overturning the vicious poverty trend in
unserved communities, especially in Mindanao, via electrification with the
partnership of electric cooperatives,” he said.
The NEA chief said there are 19,740
sitios that remain without electricity, majority of which are in Mindanao
(8,535), followed by Luzon (6,541), and Visayas (4,664).
Masongsong said the agency needs at
least P25 billion to fully implement the rural electrification program before
President Duterte’s term ends, noting that the average cost to energize a sitio
is P1.4 million.
He said most of the unenergized
sitios are located in far-flung and isolated areas, which are harder to reach.
Masongsong also cited
difficult terrain, right-of-way issues, unstable peace and order conditions in
some areas, natural calamities, and administrative constraints as key
challenges in the implementation of rural electrification.
Thus, NEA proposed a set of
measures to achieve its target of 100 percent electrification.
No comments:
Post a Comment