Power retailer Manila Electric Co. asked the Energy Regulatory Commission to approve a capital expenditure budget of P40 billion to P50 billion to roll out its smart grid program from 2022 to 2026.
“Under the 5th RP [regulatory period] application, that’s close to between P40 [billion] and P50 billion. And part of that of course is the AMI (Advanced Metering Infrastructure), automation, distribution management system, enterprise and after that the IT side. The program is huge,” Meralco executive vice president and chief operating officer Ronnie Aperocho said.
Aperocho said at the sidelines of the conclusion of the three-day Giga Summit that Meralco started the process to become a smart grid “because we have a good level of visibility already for the entire network.”
“Up to transformer level, we can now monitor and what remains is the last mile or those up to the customer meters. Last mile in the sense that if the customer has no electricity, they do not need to call us, the meter itself will send the signal,” Aperocho said.
Aperocho said Meralco’s smart grid program spans the distribution network including substations, back-end operations, smart meters, among others.
“For our substations, we started adopting the latest industry-standard IEC 61850 and proliferated the use of asset condition sensors such as online DGA, and bushing monitoring, among others,” he said.
“Our expansive distribution network will continue to be more automated as we scale up our distribution automation devices including remote-controlled reclosers and switches. This also involves using battery energy storage systems, and electric vehicles,” he said.
He said Meralco initially approved 140,000 smart meters, mostly under the prepaid electricity program, within a small area of its franchise. Smart meters allow customers to manage their electricity consumption.
“Among these smart grid initiatives, we now focus on our AMI program which serves as a digital platform in empowering our customers. Beyond its core functions to help utilities increase operational efficiency, AMI is recognized globally as a key technology enabler for Smart Grids,” Aperocho said.
He said the smart meters would help Meralco offer smart tariffs that are tailor-fit to specific customer needs. This may include prepaid electricity, electric vehicle charging, demand-side management, among others.
“With the last gasp or outage detection and notification feature of the smart meters, we gain operational visibility down to the household level. Customers or areas with AMI deployment will benefit from faster response time through quick outage detection without relying from customer calls,” Aperocho said.
Meralco, the country’s biggest power distributor with over 7.6 million customers in its franchise areas, is still waiting for ERC approval of its 5th RP application.