VECO to offer prepaid electricity in Q3

CEBU CITY — The Visayan Electric Co., Inc. (VECO) is aiming to offer prepaid electricity to its so-called lifeline customers in the third quarter of the year. Jaime Jose Y. Aboitiz, VECO senior vice-president, said the system will initially be offered to customers who consume 50 kilowatt-hours or less every month as well as those "who are expensive to keep," referring to customers who repeatedly fail to pay their bills on time and frequently get their power lines disconnected. "They’re expensive to keep because our people have to keep visiting their homes to disconnect and, then later, reconnect their lines. It takes only P10 to get reconnected and we spend so much for these activities," Mr. Aboitiz said. With a prepaid electricity system, which will be similar to the prepaid mobile phone system, Mr. Aboitiz said such customers will have the opportunity to purchase electricity based on their financial capacity. He estimated that about 80,000 of VECO’s 275,000 customers are lifeline customers. The electric company will send a team to South Africa to observe the prepaid electricity system practice in preparation for the implementation of its plan. "We will also invite the Energy Regulatory Commission to join the trip because this is new even for the ERC and we want them to see for themselves how this works," Mr. Aboitiz said. The company also wants to learn from the experience of the Leyte II Electric Cooperative, which pioneered the system in 2004. The group has has deployed 2,500 prepaid electric meters in Tacloban City and Palo town in Leyte and is preparing to acquire 500 more prepaid meters. VECO, which is owned by the Aboitiz and Garcia families, is the second biggest private utility in the country. It serves Metro Cebu and neighboring towns. - Marites S. Villamor/BusinessWorld