THE Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) has revised its projected sales volume growth forecast to 6 percent from 4.7 percent made in the early part of 2024.
“We’ll end up the year with around 53,350 plus gigawatt hours (GWh). That’s technically close to 3,000 GWh additional from 2023,” said Ferdinand Geluz, Meralco chief revenue officer, at the sidelines of the company’s financial results briefing last week.
The company’s energy sales volume last year was at 51,044 GWh.
Geluz said growth is attributed to strong power demand from both the residential and commercial customer segments as well as the “modest” improvement of the industrial customer segment.
Meralco’s consolidated energy sales in the first nine months of the year, rose by 7 percent to 40,872 GWh from the previous year’s 38,164 GWh with increases recorded across all customer segments.
The residential segment maintained a double-digit growth of 10 percent to 14,758 GWh from 13,363 GWh driven by sustained energization of new accounts and higher per capita consumption.
Commercial sales volumes went up 8 percent to 15,261 GWh from 14,122 GWh last year, despite the exit of locators of offshore gaming operations and the continuing remote work arrangements.
Sales from the industrial sector posted a 2 percent increase to 10,743 GWh from 10,570 GWh due to the increase in production lines of plastics, food and beverage industries.
The commercial segment had the biggest share of 37 percent in the energy sales mix while residential and industrial accounted for 36 percent and 26 percent.
Meralco said its net income will likely exceed the P43-billion income guidance for full year 2024.
This is Meralco’s second upgrade for its income guidance for this year which was originally set at P40 billion.
Meralco’s core net income in the first three quarters rose 17 percent to P35.1 billion from P30.02 billion in the same period in 2023. Its revenues improved 6 percent to P355.4 billion from P335.2 billion.
