Meralco urges businesses to join ILP

MANILA, Philippines — Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) is urging more businesses to join the country’s Interruptible Load Program (ILP).

The ILP is a demand-side management program led by the Department of Energy and Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) wherein participants will be asked to temporarily de-load from the grid and use their generator sets when there is supply deficiency and power interruptions are imminent.

As of September, Meralco said it has about 582 megawatts (MW) from 121 companies enrolled in the ILP.

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 ERC.

Meralco is proactively encouraging more businesses to participate in the demand-side management program.

“We continue to call on more participants, and to those who are not yet eligible – to exercise prudence in the usage of electricity,” Meralco VP and head of enterprise and national government Ma. Cecilia Domingo said.

Meralco said 72 business establishments enrolled under the ILP have been instrumental in ensuring the continuous supply of electricity in its franchise area when the Luzon grid was placed on red alert last month.

It immediately activated the ILP and called on enrolled customers to temporarily de-load when the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines warned that power interruptions were imminent due to insufficient operating reserves last Sept. 12.

Meralco said responding to its call were big-load customers, which used their own back-up power and collectively de-loaded close to 298 MW from the grid.

These customers include properties owned by the SM Group, Waltermart, Ayala Land, Belle Corp., and Citystate Centre Condo Corp.

Meralco said that through their help, no manual load dropping was implemented, effectively sparing its other customers from experiencing rotating brownouts.

“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 VP and head of corporate communications Joe Zaldarriaga said.

With commercial and industrial segments accounting for a huge part of its customer base, cooperation and support of customers with at least one MW power demand are crucial to the success of the ILP, Meralco said.