Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) is embarking on a smart grid program estimated to cost up to P50 billion until 2026.
Meralco COO Ronnie Aperocho said in his speech during the last day of the Giga Summit organized by the Meralco Power Academy that the company’s Smart Grid program spans the distribution network.
“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.
Aperocho said Meralco’s distribution network will continue to be more automated as the company scales up its automation devices including remote-controlled reclosers and switches. It also involves using battery energy storage systems, and electric vehicles.
“Down to the last mile, we have rolled out the initially approved 140,000 smart meters, mostly under prepaid electricity program, within a relatively small area of our franchise. We are continuously advocating with the regulators our plan to scale up our AMI (Advanced Metering Infrastructure) deployment to all Meralco customers,” he said.
Aperocho said the focus is on the AMI program which serves as a digital platform in empowering customers.
On top of the basic services, many utilities are looking into AMI to unlock the full value of Smart Grids in enabling the energy transition,” he said.
