Meralco sees flat sales in July

MANILA, Philippines — Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) expects sales to be flat in July compared to a month ago due to cooler temperature and low demand as most of its franchise area still remains under lockdown, company officials said.

While the industrial sector slightly recovered after quarantine measures were eased in June, Meralco chairman Manuel V. Pangilinan said the demand from the commercial segment remained lackluster.

“The industrial sector has recovered somewhat and probably will continue to recover moderately in the coming months, but demand from the commercial sector really dropped from a year ago level,” the company chairman said.

On a year-ago basis, Meralco first vice president and head of customer retail services and corporate communications Victor Genuino said there was not much movement in power demand from the commercial and industrial segments.

“If you look at purely net system input or NSI for July, it is comparable to the month of June. So not much movement. That means our commercial and industrial segments haven’t been firing up compared to the same period of last year,” he said.

The residential sector, on the other hand, remained strong in July as more people continue to work from home.

“The residential segment went up in June and I think it’s slightly up in July,” Pangilinan said.

He noted that the country experienced slightly cooler temperatures in July compared to June.

Moving forward, Meralco’s growth in sales volume would highly depend on the imposition of quarantine measures by the government in the coming months, Meralco president and CEO Ray Espinosa said.

“The resumption of full operation of commercial and industrial sectors is really dependent on the IATF (Inter-Agency Task Force on Emerging

Infectious Diseases) and state of quarantine in various areas within our franchise so that much we know is a fundamental requirement for our demand and sales outlook,” he said.

As most of Meralco’s franchise area is placed on general community quarantine, there will be enough power supply.

“So far, in terms of energy supply, we should have energy supply to meet the current needs of our customers. So we are very closely tracking the developments particularly in the government’s decision making process as to what the state of community quarantine will be,” Espinosa said.

But in terms of power supply outlook for next year, the company executive declined to release forecasts since demand will be dependent on lockdown measures of the government.

“It’s really difficult for us to foresee what’s in store for us next year and what state of community quarantine will be. Like most—if not all—businesses, we’re looking at it on an ongoing basis. And the quarantine level is being reviewed by government every two weeks, we’re just following the lead of the government,” Espinosa said.

Despite uncertainty, Meralco will still pursue the competitive selection process (CSP) for greenfield baseload capacity of 1,800 MW (net) for commercial operations in 2024-2025.

“In terms of capacity requirement for the future, we’re not changing that. I think our plans have not significantly changed resulting in reduction of capacity. The CSP of 1,800 MW that we had announced will push through. We need that supply in the year 2024 and 2025,” Espinosa said.