Power retailer Manila Electric Co. said it expects power demand to increase in the coming days after the government placed Metro Manila under “modified enhanced community quarantine” starting May 16.
The modified ECQ will allow certain businesses to resume partial operations.
“Malacanang just announced modified ECQ for NCR. Demand will shift slowly from residential to commercial /industrial establishments that have been allowed to operate,” said Victor Emmanuel Genuino, first vice president and head of customer retail services and corporate communications at Meralco.
Power demand in Meralco’s franchise area was driven by residential customers during the ECQ. Meralco experienced a big decline in demand from the commercial and industrial sectors since the start of the quarantine period on March 15.
Power demand went down by as much as 30 percent in Luzon.
Meralco said a significant number of transformers were overloaded because of the unusually high electricity consumption in homes during the ECQ and the high temperature.
“Given rising temperature and modified ECQ, overall demand may continue to increase so our crew remains vigilant to address outage incidences,” Genuino said.
Meralco said its personnel were working 24/7 to restore electricity in these areas soon despite limitations brought about by the ECQ and continuing threat of COVID-19 infection.
Meralco also said kites caught in power lines resulted in blackouts for 1.9 million households and 33 hospitals as of May 9. It said that from March 16 to April 15, 47 unnecessary power interruptions were caused by kites and foreign objects that affected 708,805 customers.
“We are in parallel upgrading facilities serving predominantly residential customers whose demand substantially increased due to ECQ and higher average temperature,” Genuino said.
Meralco said power rates of consumers went up in May despite its announcement that overall power rates for a typical household went down by P0.2483 per kilowatt-hour to P8.7468 per kWh from P8.9951 per kWh last month.
Meralco said one reason was the inclusion of the adjustment for the April and March bills.
“For areas with meter readers, actual consumption is reflected in the May bill, plus adjustments on the March and April bills. Remember, all April bills and some March bills we estimated based on average consumption for the past three months due to the ECQ,” the company said.
Meralco said the consumption could be higher in May as people stayed and worked from home amid higher temperature.