The Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) has hinted probable stretched recovery period for the roughly P0.90 per kilowatt hour (kWh) deferred charges of the Manila Electric Company.
ERC Executive Director Francis Saturnino Juan said this is already being studied by the Commission even if the utility firm has yet to hurdle the lifting of the Supreme Court’s temporary restraining order (TRO) on its P4.15 per kilowatt hour (kWh) rate hike in December.
This was sounded off by the regulatory body as Meralco customers are still wary of the pass-on of the deferred charges on its December and January billings.
If the high court would lift the TRO and if Meralco would be directed to apply for recovery of its deferred adjustments, the ERC noted that longer recovery will have to be enforced so the costs pass-on will not come as “rate shock” to consumers.
The generation charge of Meralco will go down very slightly this month by P0.13 kWh to P5.54 from the actual billing of P5.67 per kWh last month, but this is not necessarily coming as a relief for its customers because of bigger fear on the impact of its deferred charges.
Last month, the actual generation charge was at P10.23 per kWh, but the amount billed was trimmed down to P5.67 per kWh because of the extended effect of the SC’s restraining order.
The utility firm’s December pass-on rate was also slashed by P4.15 per kWh due to questions on the basis of Meralco’s drastic spikes in prices in November’s supply month.
Meralco said “the decrease in generation charge was driven by the significant P30.57 per kWh reduction in the cost of power sourced from the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market.”
In November and December, the spikes in WESM prices were primarily blamed in the sky-high rise in Meralco’s generation charge.
Meralco pointed to its own act of higher procurement of power supply from the WESM as the reason behind its fiercely-questioned rate hikes.
The specified supply months straddled the period when the Malampaya gas production facility was on shutdown; while many plants were also on scheduled maintenance and the rest suffering from forced outages.
“From P36.08 per kWh during the December supply month, WESM charges went down to P5.41 per kWh during the January supply month,” Meralco said.
It emphasized that, “this reduction in the generation charge, particularly in the cost of power from WESM was expected as power supply normalized during the January supply month, with most of the baseload plants that were previously out of service returning to normal operations and with gas-fired plants no longer using the more costly liquid fuel.” source
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