Written By Joe Espiritu
Columnist
Bohol Sunday Post
Most of the Greater Manila, electricity users are up in arms against Manila Electric Corporation better known as Meralco because of a percentage tacked in their electric bills. A certain amount is added to cover, what is called system loss. The Meralco even showed an ad in the television trying to explain why such amount has to be paid. Despite the popularity of the paid endorser, the ad only caused confusion. The explanation oozed with sophistry only a slick lawyer could produce.
Judy Ann Santos, the paid endorser, tried to explain the system loss using the analogy of melting ice water. She tried to explain the loss of ice by the time it reaches the house and tried to equate the melt to the system loss. The reasoning there is convoluted. At the time and point of purchase, a definite volume or weight of ice was given to her. If the ice melts before it could be used, she will have to shoulder the loss. The point there is; let us say for five pesos (P5), she is given a block of ice weighing one kilo or say measuring one cubic foot.
If the block of ice no longer weighs one kilo or measures the same at the time of purchase, she will have to assume the loss because it happened when she took the possession of the block of ice. But at the time of purchase it was exactly one kilogram or say one cubic foot that she bought. She did not buy the melted ice.
Then, in a deeper sense, the ice purchase analogy will not hold true. Power sales is a sort of monopoly, ice sales is not. While one can choose a store, which sells ice, which is thoroughly frozen not a melting one, One cannot choose a power distributor, which will not charge system loss on a power not purchased.
While the water used is measured in volume, electric energy is measured in watts.
For computation purposes, the watt is too small for large-scale measurement. Water consumed is measured in cubic meters that is one meter by one meter by one meter, power consumed is measured in kilowatts or one thousand watts.
Electric energy is generated or produced by power producers like the government owned and controlled National Power Corporation known as NPC and Independent Power Producers or IPP. They sell their power to distributors like Meralco or in our case the Bohecos. The power distributors in turn sell electricity to consumers.
Sometimes the NPC maintains a main power distribution line. Sometimes, like the IPP, their power is conveyed to the distributor through lines built and maintained by the Transco.
From the generating plants through the mains to the distributor receiving station, power is lost during transmission. From the distributor receiving station through distribution lines until it reaches the user, power is also lost. From the electric meter to the lights and appliances, power may also be lost. There may be other instances of system loss such as un-subscribed power purchased. Power lost at any point is system loss.
If the power is lost during the conduction from the generating plant to the distributor receiver meter, the loss should be absorbed by the power generator and the Transco if they use Transco lines. If the power is lost during the conduction from the distributor receiver meter to the user electric meter, the power loss must be absorbed by the distributor because the power had not been used yet by the user.
However, it is not as simple as that. If the power generator sells to the distributor at rates, which will include system loss, the loss is passed to the distributor. Then if the distributor sells to the user at rates, which will include system loss of the power producer and those lost by the distributor during transmission all losses will be paid by the user.
Business economics demand that profit must be realized if one is to survive. If absorbing power losses might cut into profit, the loss should be fobbed off to someone else. It is the user, who has to shoulder losses, not of their own making.- www.iamafilipina.com
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