Business World Onlind
Posted on December 06, 2011 11:42:21 PM
ELECTRICITY BILLS for the month of December will go down by P0.27 per kilowatt-hour (kWh), Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) yesterday announced.
The generation charge for the month was slashed to P5.51/kWh, which the utility said was due to a reduction in the price of power purchased from the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM).
WESM prices fell by P3.49/kWh from a high of P12.48/kWh in the October 2011 supply month, Meralco said in a statement, tracing this to the “reopening of the Malampaya natural gas pipeline... [that] helped ease the supply constraint.”
The Malampaya natural gas pipeline was shut down in October for maintenance. Last month, Meralco’s generation charge went up due to higher WESM prices.
The reduction in WESM rates partially offset slightly higher prices -- up by P0.30/kWh -- from independent power producers.
Meralco said the Sta. Rita and San Lorenzo power plants used regularly priced natural gas from Malampaya after running on cheaper banked gas in October. Foreign exchange costs also affected the prices of the independent power producers, it said.
The power distributor sourced 48% of its power requirements from the independent power producers, 43.1% from the National Power Corp. and 8.9% from the WESM.
Electricity users that consume 100 kWh will see a P27 reduction this month, Meralco said. Users of 200 kWh, meanwhile, will experience a P54 cut in their bills. -- ENJD
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