Commitment key for ILP to work

For the Interruptible Load Program (ILP) to work, it needs the commitment from business groups and local government.

Sebastian Lacson, Visayan Electric Co. (Veco) chief operating officer, gave this advice following the call of the European Chamber of Commerce in the Philippines (ECCP) for the government to adopt ILP as one of the solutions to address the looming power shortage in the Luzon grid next year.

“ILP started in 2009 and we remembered everyone was just committed to do it. Meralco (The Manila Electric Co.) already has an ILP but it needs more participants,” Lacson said.

Lacson gave five important points that made Veco’s ILP successful.

“One thing that was critical is that we did not make it mandatory and obligatory. The participating companies all understood that they can say no when we asked them to deload but their commitment to sacrifice a little to benefit many is what made them really participate,” he said.

Another important thing is for the distribution utility (DU) to pay the companies for the cost and always pay on time.

“Also give them recognition. What they have done is something worthy of recognition because it is actually a sacrifice on their part. They incur additional costs that we can’t compensate,” he said.

The DUs should also explain the program well to the participating companies — how it works and why their participation is important.

“Back then when we started in 2009, we also have very strong backing from the government. Then governor Gwen Garcia helped convince companies with power production capacity to participate,” Lacson said.

Today, VECO has 64 MW worth of deloadable power from over 20 participating companies.

He said they will continue to invite participants especially new malls, hotels and establishments that have backup capacity of 2 MW to 3 MW.