Big firms sign up for ILP to ease power shortage

MANILA, Philippines - Some of the biggest names in the business sector – the Sy Group, the Gokongweis, the Ayala Group, Andrew Tan’s Megaworld, Roberto Ongpin’s Alphaland and the group of Manuel V. Pangilinan — have signed up for the government’s Interruptible Load Program (ILP) Manila Electric Co. (Meralco), the country’s biggest power distributor, said.

As of yesterday, Meralco has sought commitments of 149.5 megawatts of capacity from these ILP participants, said Meralco head of utility economics Larry Fernandez.

The ILP is one of the options the Department of Energy is eyeing to avert a looming power shortage next year.  It is a demand-side load management that seeks to help alleviate power supply concerns in the Luzon grid.

Meralco said under the program, its customers with loads of at least one megawatt are called upon to voluntarily reduce their consumption, if needed, during peak hours of the day, or from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., by running their own generator sets, instead of drawing their power directly from the grid.

Meralco said that at least 24 companies and business groups have signed up for the program and have committed to de-load some 149.5 MW in capacity to ease demand from the grid.

Among these companies are SM Prime Holdings Inc., Robinsons Land Corp., Rustan Supercenters, Smart/PLDT/Sun Cellular, Shangri-La Plaza Corp., Waltermart Malls, Alphaland Development, Inc., Megaworld Corp., Ortigas & Co., Sunstar Mall in Laguna, the JMT Condominium Corp., Power Concessionaires Inc., TV 5, Seda Hotel BGC and Citystate Centre.

Other companies on the list are Condominium Corp., Prestige Tower Condo, Manta Equities Inc., Fort Bonifacio Development Corp., Raffles Condominium, Marco Polo Ortigas, Ayala Land Inc., Bay City Mall and Trafalgar Plaza Condo.

The power distributor continues to appeal to other corporate customers to heed the government’s call to be part of the solution to address next year’s power shortage.

Outside the Meralco franchise area, the power distributor said there are more than 300 large enterprises that are sourcing power from retail electricity suppliers (RES).

These big businesses have a combined 1,100 MW of self-generating capabilities.

“The participation of these RES customers will be a big boost to the success of the ILP,” Meralco said.