NEA to connect more electric coops to digital dashboard

MANILA, Philippines — More electric cooperatives will be connected to the National Electrification Administration (NEA)’s digital dashboard command center by next year.

NEA and Cisco, worldwide leader in enterprise networking and security, are collaborating on the digital dashboard command center project to improve the availability, reliability and efficiency of the country’s power distribution systems.

The digital dashboard command center will collect and integrate multiple performance data sources from different electric cooperatives and other internal system applications across agencies.

It will map key metrics such as total energy consumption, average power interruption frequency, and duration on a single geographic information system for analysis and actionable insights.

Further, the dashboard will enable NEA to respond to any incidents or variance in energy performance and develop plans for more reliable power distribution services.

The digital dashboard command center will be piloted with the Benguet Electric Cooperative in the first phase of the project.

Phase 2, which is slated for the second quarter of 2024, will connect 60 electric cooperatives to the dashboard, while Phase 3, which will commence in 2025, will connect the 60 remaining electric cooperatives.

To facilitate the proper implementation of its electrification plan, NEA intends to connect its command center dashboard and its new cloud-based platform called the NEA Business Intelligence Technology to the supervisory control and data acquisition systems of electric cooperatives.

“Since its creation in 1969, NEA has been at the forefront of implementing the Philippines’ rural electrification program in partnership with the 121 electric cooperatives around the country. We are committed to not only electrify homes, but to also transform lives, empower communities, and enable progress across our nation,” NEA administrator Antonio Mariano Almeda said.

As for Cisco, the collaboration with NEA is part of its country digital acceleration program in the Philippines, and is targeted at enabling timely and data-driven assessments of the performance of electric cooperatives across the country’s power grid in rural areas of the Philippines.

“With the Philippines’ growing population and industrialization, electricity will continue to be in high demand and how we allocate it becomes very important,” Cisco Philippines country managing director Zaza Soriano-Nicart said.

“Public-private partnerships play a critical role in delivering meaningful and sustained outcomes. We are harnessing Cisco technology in the Philippines to bring new opportunities to communities, drive new efficiencies for the energy sector and support the country’s sustainable energy agenda,” Soriano-Nicart said.