Danessa Rivera (The Philippine Star)
- January 11, 2018 - 12:00am
MANILA, Philippines — Customers of
Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) will see a reduction of 52.6 centavos per
kilowatt-hour (kwh) in their January electricity bill due to lower contract
prices and spot market charges.
Next month, however, power rates
will go up as the excise tax on coal increases to P50 per metric ton from P10
and diesel is slapped an excise tax of P2.50 per liter under the tax reform
program. Meralco said this raises the generation charge by P0.0113 per kwh.
Meralco said the overall month’s
rate amounted to P8.7227 per kwh, compared to last month’s P9.2487 per kwh.
This is the second consecutive month
of a decrease in overall electricity rates, totaling a cut of 90.45 centavos
per kwh over a two-month span.
The rate decrease this month amounts
to around P105 in bills of a 200-kwh residential customer, around P157 for 300
kwh, some P210 for 400 kwh and P263 for 500 kwh.
Meralco said the lower January rate
is mainly due to a P0.5277 per kwh reduction in the generation charge, a power
bill’s largest component, from P4.6045 per kwh in December to P4.0768 per kwh
this month.
Meralco said the decrease was
primarily due to lower power supply agreements (PSA) and Wholesale Electricity
Spot Market (WESM) charges.
Charges from PSAs registered a
decline of P0.9810 per kwh because of lower capacity fees as a result of the
annual reconciliation of outage allowances done at the end of each year under
the agreements approved by the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC).
“The reduction in capacity fees of
generator companies represents savings immediately passed on to consumers by
way of lower electricity rates. The capacity fees from PSAs will return to
normal levels after the downward adjustment this month,” Meralco said.
Meanwhile, charges from the WESM
also decreased by P1.6943 per kwh due to lower spot prices resulting from a
reduction in power demand in the Luzon grid.
Meralco sourced 40 percent of its
total requirement from PSAs and 19 percent from WESM.
On the other hand, charges from the
Independent Power Producers (IPP) – another generation charge component –
increased by P0.3808 per kwh due to lower average plant dispatch. The share of
IPP purchases to Meralco’s total requirement this month was at 41 percent.
In terms of other bill components,
transmission charge of residential customers increased by P0.1168 per kwh due
to higher ancillary service charges of the National Grid Corp. of the
Philippines.
Procuring ancillary service is
necessary to support the transmission of capacity and energy from resources to
loads while maintaining reliable operation of the transmission system in
accordance with good utility practice and the grid code.
While the transmission charge
increased, this was offset as taxes and other charges went down by P0.1151 per
kwh this month.
On the other hand, Meralco’s
distribution, supply and metering charges have remained unchanged for 30
months, after these registered reductions in July 2015.
No comments:
Post a Comment