Power coops post modest sales hike

MANILA, Philippines — Electric cooperatives (ECs) saw a marginal increase in electricity sales last year even as the pandemic zapped power demand.

Based on data from National Electrification Administration (NEA)’s Information Technology and Communication Services Department electricity sales grew two percent from 23,127 gigawatt-hours (GWh) in 2019 to 23,622 GWh last year.

On a per quarter basis, ECs only registered a downtrend in the second quarter of 2020, when government implemented community quarantines to curb the spread of COVID-19 in the country. During the second quarter of 2020, energy sales fell four percent year-on-year.

Meanwhile, ECs recorded a three-percent increase in the first and third quarters of 2020, and a seven percent rise in the fourth quarter. The gains in the last two quarters were due to the easing of quarantine restrictions.

As for revenues, the ECs registered a four percent decline last year from P221.359 billion to P211.457 billion due to measures implemented by the power utilities, such as extending the ‘grace periods’ for bill payments.

The ECs, as directed by the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC), implemented payment extensions to electricity consumers to lessen the burden brought about by the pandemic.

On a per quarter basis, revenues dropped by two percent in the first quarter of 2020 due to the eruption of Taal Volcano and disruption of economic activities caused by COVID-19. The ECs suffered a 12 percent slide in revenues during the second quarter, and a four percent drop in the third quarter.

However, the NEA data also showed that the fourth quarter revenues of the electric coops inched up by one percent from P52.831 billion to P53.356 billion.Earlier, the NEA said it surpassed its 460,000 electricity consumer connections goal for 2020 by 14 percent with over 522,905 new electricity customers despite the challenges caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

This brought the total consumer connections to 14,253,053 within the franchise areas of the 121 ECs nationwide. The number of unserved consumers in the rural areas is now down to 1,550,510 based on the 2015 census, the NEA ITCSD said.

Broken down, the NEA data revealed that 47 percent of the total consumer connections, or 6.682 million, are in Luzon; 27 percent or 3.788 million are in the Visayas; and 26 percent or 3.783 million are in Mindanao.