The National Electrification Administration (NEA) has allocated another P50 million to the Benguet Electric Cooperative (BENECO) in order to have the cooperative provide electricity to more far-flung and disconnected portions of Benguet province this year.
As of 2024, at least 500 sitios in the province remain with no or extremely limited access to the BENECO power grid, out of 3,158 registered sitios in the cooperative’s jurisdiction.
The electrification of the disconnected sitios has been an ongoing effort under the government’s Sitio Energization Program (SEP), which since 2017 has slowly expanded the coverage of the country’s power grid to accommodate far-flung and tiny residential areas.
According to BENECO, sitios from the towns of Kabayan, Kibungan, Sablan, and Tuba will likely be the first for the project, but Mark Amisola, an engineer from the Network Services Department of the cooperative, is currently finalizing the list of other sitios in the province for energization that will be sent to NEA for another funding of around P50 million.
Initially, the BENECO is shooting for the electrification of 21 sitios in Benguet for this year.
The SEP is a billion-peso project of the NEA that has continued since its inception in 2017, and the last leg of the SEP in 2023 saw P1.6 billion worth of funding downloaded to various cooperatives across the country to connect the most remote residences in the country to the grid.
