VECO to kick off commercial pilot of prepaid power by H1

CEBU, Philippines - The Visayan Electric Company (VECO) is set to start off its pilot project on prepaid electricity scheme in its franchise area in Metro Cebu by the first half of this year.

Sebastian Lacson, VECO chief operating officer (COO) announced that while the scheme is a new option for electricity consumers in Cebu, that roll out will be well distributed to the cross section of society, from rural to urban areas, to high-end subdivisions.

“We still have to see if the consumers will like it. We have to see to it that it is acceptable, then we decide to roll out the scheme,” said Lacson in an interview Wednesday.

  According to Lacson VECO targets to deploy about 300 prepaid electricity meters, while the company has already prepared the STS (standard transfer specifications) platform, to support the pre-payment electricity scheme.

Prepaid electricity scheme is not only attractive to the budget conscious consumers, but also to other sectors in the electric consuming public, such as those that owns condominiums, apartments, rest houses of vacation homes and boarding houses, among others.

VECO has over 340 thousand electric consumers in its franchise area covering from San Fernando in the Southern part of Cebu, and up to Lilo-an in the northern part of the Metro.

In 2009, the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) issued the rules governing the prepaid metering scheme for electricity, officially allowing distribution utilities like VECO to begin offering the service to their customers.

 The scheme is expected to help residential customers manage their consumption of electricity.

With the issuance of rules, distribution utilities could file their applications with the ERC to offer paid retail electric service (PRES) to their residential customers, the commission said.

The PRES is an electric service that uses a prepaid metering system designed to allow a residential customer to purchase credit or load and then use electricity until such time his load is exhausted.

It is also expected not only to benefit consumers but also the distribution utilities, because the service will allow for "operational efficiency."

Customers will have the option to apply for a prepaid retail electric service on a voluntary basis, subject to the availability of a distribution utility's prepaid electric service infrastructure.

The electricity rates will be the same as those charged under the existing postpaid scheme, which is at P10.1168/kWh, unless the distribution utility applies for and the ERC approves a different tariff for prepaid meters.

According to the ERC, the distribution utilities should also provide reasonable means from which the residential electricity consumers would have easy access to the purchase of the electric energy credit for 24 hours daily to ensure continuous electricity service.

It added that the "cost of the metering system is to be shouldered by the DU (distribution utility), thus, no meter deposit will be collected from the consumer."

Distribution utilities are also required to source prepaid meters that are certified and compliant to the standards of International Electromechanical Commission (IEC) or the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). Prepaid meters should be further subjected to ERC testing and certification.

As required under the rules, the prepaid electricity meter system must have the capabilities to: load the purchased energy, display real time information on how the load is being consumed, and give warning that the load is close to zero thereby providing a sufficient buffer before electricity is completely disconnected.

Lacson added that with VECO’s existing partnership with providers, such as mobile networks, “we hope we can dovetail what we’ve done,” in terms of making the prepaid electricity cards conveniently available for consumers. (FREEMAN)