Manila Electric Company (Meralco) is hopeful that the fresh revenues from the energization of data centers will boost sales in the second semester and compensate for slower growth in the first half.

In a media chat, Meralco Chief Revenue Officer Ferdinand O. Geluz said some of the data centers that they have energized last year will finally start to contribute by the third quarter, in addition to some recovery in construction.

The utility’s electricity sales in the first half may have grown by just 0.5 percent, significantly lower than the earlier forecast of 4.5 percent, due to cooler weather, the exit of Philippine offshore gaming operations (POGOs), and increased use of rooftop solar panels.

“This kind of weather is affecting sales especially the households. Remember, much of our sales driver is residential sales during summer. In fact, residential overtakes commercial in terms of the share in May and, normally, in June. Right now, compared to last year, we see residential sales (to be a little low) despite the fact that we grew the number of customers. So, growth will be flattish,” he explained.

He noted that, “On the second half, I think there will be some sort of a recovery. For one, the impact of POGO will not be as bad compared to the first half, because, when it was announced that POGO would stop operations by December, starting August, we saw an abrupt drop in sales to POGOs. So at least on a year-to-year basis, it will normalize in the second half.”

“We're also seeing some uptick in the construction industry: cement as well as glass. And, after a long period of downturn, we are seeing some growth,” said Geluz.

Aside from weaker sales in the residential market, Geluz said Meralco is also experiencing the impact of rooftop solar panels, especially for the commercial segment and the large industrial segment.

“All in all now, there is around 300 plus megawatts of installed rooftops and 123 to 125 megawatts is actually net metering,” said Geluz.

Small rooftops of 100 kilowatts and below are under the net metering system while large installations and account for about 123 megawatts while those more than 100 kilowatts to megawatts total around 200 MW in installed capacity.

Each megawatt of installed solar rooftop normally produces about 1.3 gigawatt hours of electricity per year so the 325 megawatts will have an impact of close to 400 gigawatt-hours on Meralco’s sales. Geluz said growth in consumers using net metering is about 30 percent to 40 percent a year.

He added that, the exit of POGOs also resulted in a slowdown in sales including real estate and retail trade since it had a residual impact on occupancy of condominiums as well as for commercial customers such as the restaurants built around the POGO area.