Meralco seen to post 8.1% sales growth this year

It will be a robust performance for Manila Electric Company (Meralco) this year, at projected 8.1-percent growth in sales from a leaner 6.0percent level in 2015.

Meralco Senior Vice President Alfredo S. Panlilio noted that the sales growth was generally propelled by demand expansion – especially in the initial months of the year.

“It’s going to be roughly 39,600 GWh (gigawatt hours) and if you add CEDC (Clark Electric Distribution Corporation), at roughly about 500 GWh, it will exceed the 40,000 GWh on consolidated basis,” he said.

Panlilio stressed this will be the first time that the utility firm “will be breaching the 40,000 GWh level,” of growth in sales.

He explained that the increase in sales is relatively heftier “because the first half was high…we had a double digit growth until July at average 10 percent.”

Sales just tapered off in the latter months because of cooler weather, resulting in a little bit depressed demand.

But he emphasized that prospects for next year will still be “rosy’, although sales growth may be lower because performance will be coming from a higher base this 2016.

“If you look at the construction happening on the residential side, still you see a lot of buildings being constructed,” the Meralco executive said.

He further cited that on the commercial side, “we have Tiger Okada which is coming up.”

At just its soft launching, the demand was already at 1.0GWh, but this is expected ramping up to 15-16 GWh at its targeted full commercial operations next year.

Demand expansion in the residential segment is similarly on robust mode, with more connections being targeted even with the utility firm’s prepaid metering system. (MMV)