NEA confident of hitting 15 million connections

MANILA, Philippines — State-run National Electrification Administration (NEA) is confident it will reach 15 million connections in the countryside soon with less than 31,000 consumers connected.

Recent report on consumer connections showed 14.969 million have already been served, with only 30,965 consumers less to reach another milestone in the Rural Electrification Program.

As of end-March, a total of 129,560 new consumer connections were served, representing 32 percent of the 400,000 targeted consumers for the year.

This makes up nearly a third of the target within the first three months of this year alone.

“The NEA, in partnership with the electric cooperatives, will continue to bring light and hope to the people in the countryside,” NEA administrator Emmanuel Juaneza said.

Clustered into the major islands, 46 percent of the total connections or 6.99 million are in Luzon, 27 percent or 3.97 million are in Visayas and 27 percent or 4.01 million are in Mindanao.

Meanwhile, about 1.29 million or only nine percent of the total potential consumers based on the 2015 Census of Population and Housing remains to be served.

Earlier this year, the NEA said it was looking to switch on the 15 millionth consumer connection within the year.

As of end-2021, electric cooperatives (ECs) have connected 14.83 million consumers, or 91 percent of the total potential connections in the franchise areas of the power coops.

This was after the electricity consumer connections target for last year exceeded by 182,083 or 46 percent despite the difficulties brought by the COVID-19 crisis. The target was 400,000 connections for the year.

In 2020, the NEA said the ECs had also exceeded the targeted 400,000 connections with a total of 522,905 consumers energized, while an accumulated total of 594 completed and energized sitio projects exceeded the target of 478 sitios.

From 2011 to 2019, the agency through its partnership with ECs energized a total of 38,357 sitios in the country.

Under its Sitio Electrification Program, the agency still needs to energize 12,467 sitios. The Duterte administration has set full energization target this year.

The NEA is mandated to carry out the total electrification of the country on an area coverage basis, with the 121 ECs as the implementing arm.