PECO to use 'smart' metering soon

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Soon, doubts on how their electric bill was read will be a thing of the past.

Panay Electric Company (PECO), which holds the franchise to distribute power in this city, will soon be embarking on “smart” metering.

“Accurate reading of meter readers has always been a contention between the consumer and the utility,” said Randy Pastolero, assistant vice president of PECO.

With the proposed automated metering scheme project, the reading of the meter will be done electronically right at the PECO office. It also has the capability to auto-reconnect and auto-disconnect without going to the site, he explained.

The project is spread in seven years and in 10 years PECO is planning to acquire 50,000 new meters.

Part of the project also is the prepaid metering that will work similar to prepaid cards used by telecommunication networks.

Pastolero disclosed the plan as he cited the electric utility’s efforts on improving the “reliability” of its service.

It now has a usable capacity of 137 megawatts as against the peak demand of Iloilo City that happens only during the hottest period of the year, which is 107 megawatts.




Pastolero said that power outages in the city have been reduced by around 600 minutes this year.

“We have reduced number of outages through time and we aim to definitely reduce it further in cooperation with our power generators and suppliers,” he said.

PECO recorded some 14,000 minutes of power outages in 2010 down to more than 2,000 minutes in 2015.

Meanwhile, the distribution utility has already completed the installation of 44 elevated metering centers (EMCs) to prevent pilferers. It intends to add 36 more to be finished by 2020. [via PGLENA, PNA]

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