Friday, November 10, 2017

Expect higher Meralco bill this month



By Lenie Lectura -

Power rates could go up this month, mainly on account of higher power-generation charge compared to the previous month.
“There are indications that generation charge will likely increase, which will most likely push total electricity rates up for the month of November, since generation charge accounts for more than 50 percent of the rate component,” Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) Spokesman Joe Zaldarriaga said.
He did not say how much the generation charge will go up. The utility firm will announce the final rates within the week.
Zaldarriaga said that, though that an upward generation charge may be attributed to a number of factors, including higher Wholesale Electricity Spot Market charges due to tight supply conditions last month when a number of plants went on longer unscheduled outages.  Likewise, the peso depreciation strongly affects generation-charge movement. In October the peso weakened further against the US dollar, influencing generation prices in the process.
Last month Meralco announced an increase for October rates, amounting to P0.0345 per kWh for a typical residential household. This brought overall rate from September’s  P9.2491 per kWh to P9.2836 per kWh in October. The slight rate increase in October amounted to a P6.91 increase in the total bill of a typical residential household consuming 200 kWh.
The October rate increase is mainly due to the P0.1777 per kWh increase in generation charge, which was offset by the reduction in other charges.

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