Published
July 7, 2017, 10:00 PM By Myrna M. Velasco
Coming from a low base
last month, the average rate of Manila Electric Company (Meralco) for July
billing cycle had been up slightly by P0.0761 per kilowatt hour (kwh).
According to the
utility firm, the rate of a typical residential household will be up to P8.25
per kwh this month from June level at P8.17 per kWh. The overall hike in the
bill of an average household end-user will be P15, primarily for those in the
200 kwh usage base.
The main rate hike
drivers, the utility firm said, had been the increase in the charges of the
Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM), plus the higher charges from its
contracted supply from independent power producers (IPPs) and other generation
companies.
“Overall generation
charge increased this July by P0.0799 per kh, from P3.8586 per kwh in June to
P3.9385 per kwh for this month mainly due to higher IPPs and WESM charges,” the
company said.
Additionally, there had
been very lean upward adjustment of P0.0042 per kwh in the transmission charge
of residential customers as pass-on component of transmission charges.
Conversely, taxes and
other charges have been down by a combined amount of R0.0080 per kwh.
Meralco emphasized that
“the July rate reflects the refund of over-recovery on pass-through charges
from January 2014 to December 2016 totaling around P6.9 billion” – and that
translates to P0.79 per kwh for residential end-users.
It emphasized though
that “the refund is not shown as a separate line item in the bill, but is
embedded in the different pass-through charges indicated in the bill.”
The company further
explained that these have already been integrated in the generation and
transmission charges, as well as in the system loss and in the lifeline and
senior citizen subsidies.
Fundamentally, it was
qualified that “this month’s rate is still comparable to January, 2010 level,
one of the lowest that had been logged so far.”
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