Meralco profit rise 5% to P18.1 B

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MANILA — Manila Electric Co. (Meralco), the country’s biggest power distributor, increased its net income of P18.1 billion last year or five percent higher than 2013’s figure.

Meralco officials attributed the increase to higher electricity sales volume last year of 35,160 gigawatt-hours or three percent over 2013.

The officials said in a briefing yesterday that this is largely caused by the combined commercial and industrial volumes of Meralco and its subsidiary Clark Electric Distribution Corp.

They also noted the increase in customer base by four percent to 5.6 million

“2014 has been another good year for Meralco, we saw continued expansion of customer base by 3.9 percent,” Meralco president Oscar Reyes said while noting the increase in energy sales at a lower rate of 3.2 percent.

“Sales would have been higher if not for several factors such as cooler temperature during January to April 2014, disruptive typhoons such as Glenda and Ruby and a thinning power supply reserves precluded consolidated energy sales, which grew by only three percent over 2013 to 35,160 gigawatt-hours from mirroring the strong 6.1 percent growth of the Philippine economy,” Meralco said in its report.

“Although lower by P33.1 billion or 11 percent year-on-year, electricity revenues of P261.7 billion in 2014 remain to be the largest component of consolidated revenues, accounting for 98 percent. The lower consolidated electricity revenues in 2014 are attributable to the loss of the pass-through supply revenue component on the electricity of contestable customers who switched their sourcing of power to other retail electricity suppliers under retail competition and open access and the P9.3 billion downward adjustment in 2014 in the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market bill for December 2013 supply volumes,” Meralco said in a statement.