TUESDAY, 12 JULY 2011 16:06 TET ANDOLONG / PROPERTIES EDITOR
As Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) marches on to its 108th year of service this year, the utility giant recently unveiled its Smart Powered Innovations, which will find its way into the power distribution network. These will cut across Meralco’s three customer segments—Residential, SMEs and the Corporate Business Group.Smart Powered Innovations encompass a package of services and products that are meant to shape a world-class standard of living for Meralco’s customers through the latest lifestyle and energy solutions.
Serving as the project’s hub is its Smart Grid pilot project, which will aid the company in collating comprehensive data that will become its guide in the planned modernization of its distribution system. The data that can be captured may include those that have eventual bearing on load forecasting, load growth, asset management, outage management and other operational efficiencies that can be instituted both at the consumer level and/or in the utility’s network.
“The two-way digital communication capability of the Smart Grid is one technological application our customers can look forward to. This new-generation electricity network has the potential to create new products and services, elevate energy reliability and efficiency and, eventually, help bring down costs. Likewise, it offers our customers a full automation experience never before felt,” said Meralco president and chief executive officer Manuel V. Pangilinan.
With Smart Grid, Meralco can actually control the distribution systems from remote locations. They can perform supervisory control of equipment and monitor operations as well as the overall health of the electric grid all in real time.
Meralco will offer new products that will help its customers gain more convenience in availing of the company’s services. For instance, the new Smart Meter will offer two-way communications capabilities between the meters and the utility provider as well as through the entire electricity grid. The Smart Meter will make one’s budgeting easy. In conjunction with the Energy Management Portal (another Meralco product), household members will be able to monitor their bills on a per room or per appliance basis and the consumption can be compared with that of the previous month or year. Those who dread settling enormous electricity bills at month’s end, will now also be able to go prepaid, which will allow them to settle their bill payments on a daily basis.
Meralco is also embarking on a Home Area Network project, which the company claims is an automated solution to enhance consumers’ convenient and stress-free living. Through a gadget called Smart Home, anyone can control and program his Internet-connected lights, locks, curtains and appliances with just a click of a button on their mobile phone, iPad or Android device, even when not at home.
Consistently on the list of the Philippines’ top five corporations and cited among Asia’s finest, Meralco today serves over 4.8 million residential, commercial and industrial customers. It is strategically located to serve the country’s center of commerce and industry and its hub of government services and infrastructures. It services about 30 manufacturing economic zones, which also compete in the global market. Likewise, the company caters to providers of outsourced business processes, both domestic and international.
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