Meralco cuts January power rates

By Philippines News Agency - January 10, 2020

https://businessmirror.com.ph/2020/01/10/meralco-cuts-january-power-rates/

The Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) announced Wednesday it will reduce power rates at the start of the year.

Power rates for January will settle at P9.4523 per kilowatt-hour from P9.8623 per kWh, decreasing by P0.4100 per kWh.

This would mean a P82reduction in the electricity bill for a household consuming 200 kWh a month.

In a statement, Meralco said generation charge this month declined due to lower costs from its power-supply agreements (PSAs) and independent power producers.

Generation charge for January decreased by P0.2928 per kWh to P4.9039 per kWh from last month’s P5.1967.

Meralco also cut transmission charges for residential customers by P0.0517 per kWh this month due to lower National Grid Corp. of the Philippines’s ancillary service charge.

Taxes and other charges are also lower by 0.656 per kWh at the start of 2020.

Meanwhile, distribution, supply and metering charges have remained stable for 54 months.

In December, power rates rose to P9.8623 per kWh, up by P0.3044 per kWh from November’s P9.5579 per kWh, mainly due to higher spot market prices.

The upward adjustment is equivalent to around P61 in the typical household’s total electricity bill, or those with a monthly consumption of 200 kWh.

Generation charge, a major component of an electricity bill, went up to P5.1967 per kWh, an increase of P0.1650 per kWh from P5.0317 per kWh last month.

This was because charges from the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM) increased by P1.0799 per kWh, driven by tighter supply conditions in the Luzon grid. As a result, the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines placed the Luzon Grid on yellow alert on two occasions.

The average capacity on outage in November increased by 525 megawatts (MW) because of scheduled and forced outages of some power plants and the natural gas supply restriction of Malampaya onshore gas plant implemented by SPEx in November 2019. The share of WESM to Meralco’s supply needs was reduced to 10 percent.

Meanwhile, the cost of power from the independent power producers and power-supply agreements also increased by P0.1106 per kWh and P0.0987 per kWh, respectively, due to lower average dispatch and weakening of the peso against the US dollar.