Meralco bills rise for 2nd month

December 11, 2018 | 12:31 am

https://www.bworldonline.com/meralco-bills-rise-for-2nd-month/

MANILA Electric Co. (Meralco) announced on Monday a P0.0902 per kilowatt-hour (kWh) hike in December’s overall electricity rate to P10.1803/kWh, marking the second straight month of increase, citing a rise in generation charge from power supply contracts.

In a statement, Meralco said the “slight upward adjustment” from P10.0901/kWh in November would result in an increase of around P18 in the bill of a typical household using 200 kWh. For those consuming 300 kWh, 400 kWh and 500 kWh, the corresponding increases would be P27.06, P36.08 and P45.1, respectively.

“Since April this year, electricity rates registered a net decrease of P0.37/kWh,” the distribution utility said.

It said the higher charges from power supply agreements (PSAs) and independent power producers (IPP) pulled up the generation charge.

“From P5.2725/kWh last month, generation charge for December went up to P5.3303/kWh, an increase of P0.0578/kWh,” the company said.

The utility attributed the increase largely to the rise in cost of power from PSAs by P0.5167/kWh and IPPs by P0.1783/kWh.

It said that, despite the stronger peso, these charges rose in December due to lower average plant dispatch. It cited the scheduled maintenance outage of the San Lorenzo plant’s module 50 last Oct. 28-Nov. 7 and its module 60 on Oct. 28-Nov. 8.

“The shares of PSAs and IPPs purchases to Meralco’s total requirement this month were 42% and 38%, respectively,” the company said.

In contrast, the cost of power from the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM) went down by P1.0268/kWh due to improvement in Luzon’s power supply situation. This came at a time when demand for power in November was lower. Meralco said WESM provided 20% of its supply needs.

Meanwhile, transmission charge of residential customers went up slightly by P0.0169/ kWh, while taxes and other charges also rose by P0.0155/kWh.

“Meralco’s distribution, supply, and metering charges… have remained unchanged for 41 months, after these registered reductions in July 2015,” the company said in its press release, reiterating that it does not earn from pass-through charges such as the generation and transmission charges.

Payment for the generation charge goes to the power suppliers, while payment for the transmission charge goes to the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines.

Taxes and other public policy charges, including the feed-in tariff allowance rate, are remitted to the government. — V. V. Saulon