Government-run National Electrification Administration (NEA) and US digital communications firm Cisco have cemented a tie-up for digital tool application that will aid the Marcos administration’s goal of pursuing 100% electrification of all households nationwide.

The partnership, which is centered on the development of a Digital Dashboard Command Center (DDCC), will help reinforce the operational capabilities of the country’s power utilities – fundamentally the electric cooperatives (ECs) that are under the supervision of NEA.

“The DDCC will enable timely and data-driven assessments of electric cooperatives’ performance across the power grid in rural areas,” Cisco indicated.

For tangible proof point, the DDCC will pilot the dashboard at the Benguet Electric Cooperative (BENECO) as the initial phase of the project; then phase 2 will cover 60 electric cooperatives with deployment slated in second quarter of 2022; while the remaining 60 ECs will be joining the bandwagon in 2025 and that will primarily target the island-based ECs.

Cisco specified that “to facilitate the proper implementation of its plan, NEA intends to connect its command center dashboard and its new cloud-based platform, the NEA Business Intelligence Technology (BIT), to the supervisory control and data acquisition systems of electric cooperatives.”

Zaza Soriano-Nicart, Cisco country managing director of Cisco, qualified that “with the Philippines’ growing population and industrialization, electricity will continue to be in high demand and how we allocate it becomes very important.”

She thus highlighted that “public-private partnerships play a critical role in delivering meaningful and sustained outcomes,” with her noting that in the full household electrification goal of NEA, the US firm would be able to help in reinforcing the operational efficiencies of the ECs in servicing more than 14 million customers nationwide.

The current pace of household electrification in the country hovers at 89%, but with NEA deploying its digital computing system, it was emphasized that it can certainly improve immensely the EC’s operational efficiencies – all in keeping with the total electrification target that had been set by the Marcos administration.

“We are harnessing Cisco technology in the Philippines to bring new opportunities to communities, drive new efficiencies for the energy sector and support the country’s sustainable energy agenda,” Nicart said.

As explained, the DDCC in particular, “will collect and integrate multiple performance data sources from different electric cooperatives and other internal system applications across agencies.”

Then that digital platform “will map key metrics such as total energy consumption, average power interruption frequency, and duration on a single geographic information system for analysis and actionable insights,” and these data or algorithm could then be used to recalibrate operational planning for the power utilities.

Cisco similarly noted that “the dashboard will enable NEA to respond to any incidents or variance in energy performance and develop plans for more reliable power distribution services.”

As stated by NEA Administrator Antonio Mariano C. Almeda, “we are committed to not only electrify homes, but to also transform lives, empower communities, and enable progress across our nation.”

Electricity is a basic service that all Filipino homes must be given access to; but that had been a lofty ambition for past government leaderships, thus, the Marcos administration has been aiming to change that narrative.

The American firm said the collaboration with NEA is part of its ‘Country Digital Acceleration’ program in the Philippines under UGNAYAN 2030, “and is targeted at enabling timely and data-driven assessments of the performance of electric cooperatives across the country’s power grid in rural areas of the Philippines.”