Meralco to local firms: Join ILP to ensure power supply
BY LENIE LECTURA – OCTOBER 3, 2022
from Business Mirror
The Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) is encouraging its customers to participate in its Interruptible Load Program (ILP) to ensure continuous and reliable electricity service.
At end-September this year, Meralco’s ILP participants have reached 121 with a total deloading capacity of about 582 megawatts (MW) in its franchise area.
“As of September 2022, we have about 582 MW from 121 companies enrolled in the ILP. We continue to call on more participants, and to those who are not yet eligible—to exercise prudence in the usage of electricity,” said Meralco Vice President and Head of Enterprise and National Government Ma. Cecilia M. Domingo.
The ILP is the Department of Energy’s voluntary, demand-side management program that taps on businesses to collectively reduce electricity drawn from the grid when power interruptions are imminent.
Pre-enrolled customers who go temporarily off the grid are entitled to fuel compensation covering the hours when the red alert was raised, in accordance with a formula approved by the Energy Regulatory Commission.
Meralco proactively encourages more businesses to join the demand-side management program.
“We recognize the value of our partnership with the ILP participants, which really helped us in ensuring that there will be continuous, stable and reliable electricity service, consistent with our commitment to keep the lights on for our customers,” Meralco Vice President and Head of Corporate Communications Joe R. Zaldarriaga said.
The utility firm said 72 business establishments enrolled under the program have been instrumental in ensuring the continuous supply of electricity in its franchise area when the Luzon grid was placed on red alert recently last month.
Meralco immediately activated the ILP and called on enrolled customers to temporarily de-load when the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) warned that power interruptions were imminent due to insufficient operating reserves last September 12.
Responding to the call were Meralco big-load customers, which used their own back-up power and collectively de-loaded close to 298MW from the grid.
These customers include properties owned by the SM Group, Waltermart, Ayala Land, Belle Corp., and Citystate Centre Condo Corporation.
Through their help, no manual load dropping was implemented, effectively sparing other Meralco customers from experiencing rotating brownouts.
With commercial and industrial segments accounting for a huge part of Meralco’s customer base, cooperation and support of customers with at least 1-MW power demand are crucial to the success of the ILP.
