VECO urges consumers to use net metering
MANDAUE CITY, CEBU: Visayan E le c t r i c Company Inc. (VECO) is encouraging consumers using solar technology at home and be part of the net metering system.
By enlisting in this program, “we can install the correct metering system and they get to earn more from selling the excess power generated from their system,” VECO Chief Operating Officer Anton Mari Perdices said.
Sunpride Foods, Inc., a meat processing company based in this province, installed 340 solar photovoltaic (PV) panels in 2015, capable of producing a peak output of 96 kilowatts.
Electricity generated from the solar panels is primarily used to light up the company’s slaughterhouse, which can process 180-200 heads of hogs and 25 heads of cattle per hour, said Don Hanley Wong, marketing manager of Sunpride.
A sister company of International Pharmaceuticals Inc., Sunpride is the largest net metering client of VECO.
Net metering scheme is an offshoot of the Renewable Energy System Act of 2008. It allows households and companies to produce their own energy and sell the excess output to other consumers.
Under the system, customers of distribution utilities can install up to 100 kW of solar panels on-grid, with the surplus automatically streamed into the local distribution grid.
The distribution utility then credits the consumer-supplier the peso equivalent of surplus energy as part of the blended cost of power generation, which is in turn deducted from the consumer’s monthly bill.
The second biggest electricity is a unit of AboitizPower Corp. and Vivant Corp. The cooperative has 53 net metering customers of which seven are commercial clients—while the rest are residential customers—with a total capacity of 413 kW.
It started offering the Net Metering Program in 2013, with a single customer contributing 3kW.
Shares of AboitizPower closed at P 39.80 apiece on Friday.