Davao Light keeps 2024 capex at P2.4B as push for underground cabling continues

Davao Light and Power Co. Inc. projects spending P2.4 billion as capital expenditure next year, prospectively as much as it does this year, in pursuit of better service delivery for consumers, including putting all its electrical cables underground.
Rodger Velasco, Davao Light president and chief operating officer, told reporters in Davao City over the weekend that up to P250 million had been set aside for underground cabling seen completed by 2029. 
Velasco said the balance is for capacity expansion and for new substations.
Davao Light’s first piloted underground cabling in 2014 under City Ordinance No.14 which then only required underground cables in the vicinity of city hall and the Sangguniang Panlungsod.
At that time, the technology and method used was simple as the wires were transferred by directly burying them underground.
However, in 2020 and after the success of the pilot cabling project around San Pedro Square, City Ordinance 0152 -17 required its replication in other areas of the city including C.M. Recto, San Pedro, R. Magsaysay Avenue, C. Bangoy Sr., Bonifacio and Pelayo, and E. Quirino Streets for completion by 2029.
The power firm has completed 25 percent or 2 kilometers of the 7.5-kilometer underground cabling required by 2029.
The company said the project has not only upscaled the image of Davao as globally competitive but also enhanced the safety and reliability of its power and telecommunication services.
Davao Light said since the initial success of the underground cabling project, several local government units in Butuan, Bataan, Mandaluyong, Naga and Zamboanga Peninsula, look to the city as a benchmark LGU for infrastructure spending.