Macau, 23 February 2017

Companhia de Electricidade de Macau - CEM, S.A. (CEM) held Media Spring Lunch at Wynn Palace on 23 February 2017, inviting leaders and front-line reporters from local media industry to jointly celebrate the Year of Rooster as well as to express gratitude for their support over the past year. Honorable guests included Zhu Hong, Deputy Director of the Economic Affairs Department of the Liaison Office of the Central People’s Government in the Macau SAR; Samuel Lou, Deputy Director of Office for the Development of Energy Sector of MSAR; Vong Kok Seng and Lei Chi Fong, President  and Vice-President of Customer Liaison Committee. CEM executives attending the event included Chairman of the Board of Directors of CEM, members of the Executive Committee, Advisors to Executive Committee and Senior Managers in various departments.

Xu Kaicheng, Chairman of the Board of Directors of CEM, said in his welcoming speech that with respect to its power generation, transmission and distribution facilities, the investment strategy of CEM has been pragmatic with a long-term perspective. All expenditure must support the goals of maintaining the reliability of power supply as well as improving power generation efficiency and customer service. CEM has maintained the world-class power supply reliability in 2016, with an Average Service Availability Index (ASAI) based on CEM’s responsibility of 99.9998%. Guided by the core values of the company, CEM has been committed to fulfilling its corporate social responsibility in a bid to support the sustainable development of Macau. It also aims to provide safe, reliable, reasonably priced and environmental friendly electricity supply to customers, as well as to attract and nurture talents.

Bernie Leong, Chairman of CEM Executive Committee shared CEM’s performance in the past year and the direction in the coming year to the guests. Power consumption in last year hit another record high up by 5.8% to 5,255 GWh and the peak demand climbed by 5.6% to 932 MW. Local power generation cost was lower than that of imported electricity from the Mainland, local power generation in 2016 increased by 4.5%, accounting for 15% of the total power consumption of Macau. On the other hand, the power imported from mainland China in 2016 also went up 6%, taking up 82% of the total power consumption. To improve the power supply in old districts, CEM has joined hands with the Macau SAR Government to identify appropriate locations to set up more transformer substations. In 2016, CEM successfully built six new transformer substations – three at Rua de Cinco de Outubro, one at Rua da Praia do Manduco, and two at Taipa Rua do Cunha.

To optimize customers’ online service experience, CEM launched a newly-designed website by incorporating the existing corporate website and the “e-Service portal” into an integrated service platform based on the browsing habits of today’s users, together with “e-Service app”, offering customers a more convenient browsing and one-stop service experience. Customers can manage their electricity accounts via the Internet, including applying for new supply, changing account name, terminating contract, submitting self-reading, making meter reading appointment, changing bill language and e-mail address as well as applying for payment reminder and e-Bill, etc.

In addition, CEM stepped up efforts to set up electric vehicle charging stations in 2016. A total of 71 EV charging stations are now available in 18 public car parks in Macau, with different charging speed to suit different needs.

Looking ahead to 2017, besides providing customers with safe and reliable electricity at reasonable prices, CEM will strive to provide smarter and more eco-friendly power service. CEM will carry out smart meter pilot project and establish LEED-certified new dispatch centre in Coloane, promotion of energy saving culture through public and campus educational programs as well as expansion of EV charging network in different districts with the mid-term goal of providing 250 EV charging stations for citizens within five years, in a hope to build a green society that emphasizes environmental protection for the future generations of Macau.

In terms of customer service, CEM is renovating the lobby and Customer Service Centre of CEM Building in the hope of bringing a whole new experience to customers with distinctive design themes and new direction flow.

To further strengthen the capacity and stability of the importation from China Southern Power Grid, CEM will carry out the construction of the third interconnection. The newly-built circuits will increase the total capacity by 33%.

Facing the future, as the threat posed by global warming is growing, CEM believes that it will serve the public interests to adopt more low carbon emission power generation, such as natural gas. It is expected the natural gas supply to be resumed in early 2017. For some of the serious aging generators, the replacement with environmental-friendly and efficient combined cycle gas turbines is imminent. To this end, CEM has been in talks with the Macau SAR Government for the matter, which aims to maintain local power generation capacity, increase the flexibility of energy mix, and to improve the security of Macau’s power supply, while at the same time to help reduce gas emission. CEM hopes the related projects to be approved as soon as possible.