Electric coops post 7% sales growth

The country’s more-thana-hundred electric cooperatives (ECs) have posted an aggregate 7.0 percent growth on their volume sales, according to the National Electrification Administration (NEA).

Essentially, the ECs sold 21,421,471 megawatts per hour (MWh) of electricity to their customers in 2018 vis-à-vis the previous year’s 19,950,097 MWh, the electricity agency has noted.

Based on data compiled by the information technology and communications services department (ITCSD) of the NEA, that magnitude of sales expansion had been primarily boosted by the 8.0 percent increase in consumption logged for Luzon and Visayas subscribers; and 6.0 percent growth in Mindanao.

The robust sales, according to NEA, similarly resulted in 18 percent operating revenues jump for the ECs or by additional 132.518 billion in 2018 to 1211.404 billion as against the previous year’s 1178.886 billion.

Engineer Roderick Padua, NEA-ITCSD manager, emphasized that Visayas region logged the highest increase in revenues by 22 percent; while Luzon and Mindanao similarly grew by 17 percent.

In terms of individual performance on revenues, those considered as top performers had been the Central Negros Electric Cooperative, Inc. (CENECO); South Cotabato II Electric Cooperative, Inc. (SOCOTECO II); Batangas II Electric Cooperative, Inc.; (BATELEC II); Zamboanga City Electric Cooperative, Inc. (ZAMCELCO); and Peninsula Electric Cooperative, Inc. (PENELCO).

On the sphere of aggregate system loss reduction, NEA reported 0.27 percent decline for these power utilities that are generally serving the rural and urban areas outside Metro Manila.

It was so far a reduction to 10.84 percent last year from 11.11 percent in 2017 and that translated to overall savings of 2,611 gigawatt hours of electricity or 125.8 billion in monetary terms.

Padua further explained that “while reductions were registered for Luzon at 0.50 percent and Visayas at 0.22 percent, Mindanao registered an increase of 0.14 percent.”

The ECs which registered single-digit system losses had been those in Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR); the Caraga Administrative Region in Mindanao; plus Regions III, VI, VII, VII, X and XII, NEA has reported.