The Visayan Electric Co. (Veco) / CDN FILE PHOTO
CEBU CITY, Philippines — Visayan Electric Company has reported a net income of P2.6 billion for 2019, the company told its shareholders during its Annual Shareholders Meeting on Tuesday, May 19, 2020.
Engineer Raul Lucero, Visayan Electric’s president and chief operating officer, reported that the company sold a total of 3,501 Gigawatt hour (GWh) in 2019, 10.82 percent higher than its 2018 sales of 3,109 GWh.
This as the company established an increase in its number of connections in all four customer classes: streetlights connections were up by 4.43 percent; residential connections increased by 2.97 percent; while corporate connections increased by 1.1 3 percent. The highest increase, 4.72 percent, is in the industrial consumer class.
Visayan Electric, the country’s second-largest electric utility company, presently services a total of 450,087 connections in the four customer classes in the cities of Cebu, Mandaue, Talisay, Naga, and the municipalities of Consolacion, Liloan, Minglanilla and San Fernando.
According to Lucero’s report, the total increase in Visayan Electric’s number of connections is at 2.8 percent or from 437,823 in 2018 to 450,087 at the end of 2019. Its peak demand, at 601 megawatts, was recorded in October.
In 2019, Visayan Electric’s average rates per kilowatt-hour (kWh) was at P10.14 for streetlights, P11.80 for residential, P11.34 for commercial customers, and P9 for industrial connections.
The company’s operations for the year incurred a gross income of P24.42 billion, which is higher than the 2018 gross of P23.34. The operations cost, however, also increased from P21.28 billion in 2018 to P22.16 billion last year. This left a positive net of P2.26 billion for the company in 2019.
‘Slower’ response
Amid the business growth, Visayan Electric admitted a “slower” response time to emergency calls in 2019 due to the prevailing traffic situation in Metro Cebu.
In the average, its teams were able to respond to only 87 percent of the emergency call received within 30 minutes and 93 percent within one hour.
The response rate is lower by 4 percent lower for the 30-minute response window and 7 percent for the one-hour window than in 2018.
COVID-19 pandemic
On the movement restrictions due to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) and the subsequent enhanced community quarantine in the first quarter of 2020 until the present, Lucero said the company has already made adjustments to continue its operations and services.
READ: Visayan Electric energizes essential facilities for COVID-19 response
“We have assigned our engineers, our linemen, our technicians, and contractors in strategic areas [in] Cebu City, in the south and in the north. This is to minimize crossing the borders,” Lucero said.
Due to the pandemic, Visayan Electric is projecting a significant decrease in its revenues for 2020. The company is expecting to post a gross income of P21.5 billion or almost P3 billion lower than 2019.
Based on its collection from the first quarter of 2020, Visayan is expecting the loss from its commercial and industrial consumers due to the ongoing ECQ which prompted businesses to close or cease operations. /bmjo