END USERS of electricity who are participating in the net metering (NM) program of Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) have surpassed 8,500 and have generated up to 50.3 megawatt peak (MWp), an official of the power distributor said on Tuesday.
“To date, we have 8,544 NM customers with 50.3 MWp installed capacity, and year on year NM numbers and capacity are increasing rapidly,” said Meralco First Vice-President and Chief Commercial Officer Ferdinand O. Geluz during the second day of Giga Summit 2023.
The net metering program is governed by Republic Act No. 9513 or the Renewable Energy Act of 2008, which allows consumers with renewable energy (RE) generating systems of 100 kilowatts (kW) or less to export their excess electricity to distribution utilities such as Meralco.
The corresponding value of the exported power will be given as credits to the customer’s monthly bill.
For 2022, net metering customers exported a total of 20.3 gigawatts (GW). As of July 2023, up to 16.2 GW had been exported, with this year’s aggregate number expected to exceed last year’s.
Meanwhile, Mr. Geluz said Meralco had started offering distributed energy resources (DER) and had attracted three customers for DER non-exporting or those installations where the owner is not the end-user.
Under the DER rules issued by the Energy Regulatory Commission last year, RE installations with a capacity of 100 kW to 1 MW can export a maximum of 30% of their excess capacity to the distribution system and can be compensated for it.
On the other hand, RE installations solely for the customer’s own use fall under the zero-export program.
“For zero-export, our customers use the electricity generated by their RE facility for their own consumption, and Meralco ensures that there are no inadvertent energy exported through its lines to safeguard its crew as well as other electrical customers,” Mr. Geluz said.
“To date, there are 50 zero-export customers in our franchise with 26.5-MW installed capacity,” he added.
Meanwhile, Mr. Geluz said that Meralco had come ahead of its compliance with the Electric Vehicle Industry Development Act as it had deployed 156 electric vehicles (EVs) such as electricity-operated cars, vans, pickups, and motorcycles as of end-2022.
The company has also installed 39 EV chargers in its locations and business offices.
“We will continue to ramp up our EV deployment and by 2030, we aim to reach at least 25% fleet electrification complete with the required ecosystem to run these EVs,” he said.
Meralco’s controlling stakeholder, Beacon Electric Asset Holdings, Inc., is partly owned by PLDT Inc.
Hastings Holdings, Inc., a unit of PLDT Beneficial Trust Fund subsidiary MediaQuest Holdings, Inc., has an interest in BusinessWorld through the Philippine Star Group, which it controls. — Sheldeen Joy Talavera
