Meralco to engage more ILP participants

By Myrna M. Velasco – December 21, 2022, 4:06 PM
from Manila Bulletin

Power utility giant Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) will be engaging the participation of more interruptible load program (ILP) participants, so it can mollify intensifying threats of power service interruptions that may torture consumers next year, especially during the summer months.

Heeding the call of the Department of Energy (DOE), the power utility emphasized that it will now bank on “the support of big power consumers to help ensure the availability of sufficient electricity, especially in the summer months of 2023.”

Through the ILP, big ticket end-users – such as industries and commercial establishments – that have their own source of power supply will be asked to switch on their generating facilities, that way, demand in the power grid could be shaved.

Essentially, when these ILP participant-firms would agree to use their own generating sets, they shall be compensated based on the rules set forth by the Energy Regulatory Commission.

Currently, the scale of capacity that can be potentially de-loaded in Meralco’s system would be 563.89 megawatts, courtesy of the 267 participating ILP accounts already cornered by Meralco.

As explained by Ma. Cecilia M. Domingo, vice president and head for enterprise and national government of Meralco, “big companies, malls, hotels, buildings either have their own gensets that can run, or reduce their operations, so we can avoid brownouts. This is so that small businesses and residential users can still continue with their day-to-day activities without any power interruptions.”

She stated “we aim to recruit more ILP participants and increase the available de-loading capacity under ILP” – and this strategy will be consequentially paramount when supply will extremely tighten as weather temperatures rise.

Most, if not all players and relevant stakeholders in the power industry, are forecasting that next year’s summer months could turn for the worse – especially for Luzon grid, which is also the country’s main economic center.

Director Irma C. Exconde, director of the Electric Power Industry Management Bureau of the DOE, primarily noted the challenges that could further aggravate tight supply predicament of the country’s biggest power grid – including the two-week maintenance shutdown of the Malampaya gas field from February 4 to 18.

Compounding that dilemma is the highly anticipated delays in the completion of the liquefied natural gas (LNG) import facilities – in which their commercial fruition may only come between second to third quarter next year.

Still, the energy official specified that “we are already preparing for the contingencies for next year because of the challenges faced by the power sector.”