Meralco loses P1.8 B to blackouts

The Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) has recorded P1.8 billion in foregone revenues due to the recent eight hours of rotating blackouts, a company official said.

“The manual load dropping (MLD) affected some 177 circuits of Meralco and we lose potential two gigawatt/hours (gWh) worth of sales. This translates to sales loss of P1.8 billion,” Meralco chief finance officer Daniel Tagaza told reporters.

This monetary impact was based only on sales assumptions of Meralco and did not include the overall economic impact.

Tagaza said most of the revenue loss came from sales to residential customers, which bore the brunt of the power outages.

The MLD, the scheme being used by a power distributor to manage the supply of power in its system, normally affects residential areas since most of the commercial and industrial zones are spared, as blackouts in these areas may redound to more losses in revenue.

But the Meralco official noted that for the past months, they have increased their sales to residential customers.

Significant increases in energy sales of the commercial segment, which grew by 5.5 percent to 2,543 gWh, and of the residential segment, up by five percent to 2,368 gWh, were the main drivers of overall sales growth of Meralco in the first half of the year.

Ivanna dela Peña, Meralco head for utility economics, said the power utility firm is optimistic that it would still attain its 2.5 percent to three percent sales projection this year despite these untoward incidents.

“The sales target is still achievable,” the Meralco official said.

But Dela Peña warned that should these power outages frequently occur in the future, the company’s revenues would definitely be affected.

Meralco said it had posted strong energy sales in the second quarter of 2007, rising to 6,800 gWh, or up by 4.61 percent compared to the same period last year. It was a reversal of the 0.43 percent sales contraction registered in the second quarter of 2006.