posted March 09, 2016 at 11:40 pm by Alena
Mae S. Flores
Manila Electric Co. said Wednesday
the average power rate will go down by P0.19 per kilowatt-hour in March, on
lower generation charges.
The power retailer said this would
translate into a reduction of around P38 in the monthly bill of a typical
household consumer kWh.
Meralco said on a year-on-year
basis, the average power rate in March dropped by P1.79 per kWh to P8.63
per kWh from P10.42 per kWh in March 2014.
Meralco attributed the decrease in
the overall rates due to the lower generation charge which declined by P0.17
per kWh from February.
“This reduction in the generation
charge is primarily due to the higher dispatch of the plants, and to a lesser
extent, the slightly lower fuel cost,” Meralco said in a statement.
Charges from power plants under the
power supply agreements or PSAs of Meralco registered a reduction of P0.26 per
kWh. Meralco said the dispatch level of the power plants increased to 72
percent from an overall average dispatch level of 66 percent in January.
Meralco said charges from
independent power producers or IPPs also decreased by P0.17 per kWh. The
dispatch of First Gas natural gas plants Sta. Rita and San Lorenzo in Batangas
improved to 80 percent from 75 percent and to 89 percent from 80 percent,
respectively.
Rates at the wholesale electricity
spot market, however, increased by P0.63 per kWh, as market prices began to
reflect the higher system demand. WESM is the country’s trading floor of
electricity.
Meralco sourced bulk of its power
requirements from PSAs at 49.1, percent followed by IPPs at 45.6 percent. It
sourced only 5.3 percent of its requirements from WESM in February.
The transmission charge registered
an increase of P0.03 per kWh, as higher ancillary charges more than offset a
reduction in the power delivery service charge of the National Grid Corp. of
the Philippines.
Government taxes decreased by P0.02
per kWh, following the reduction in generation charge. Other charges also went
down by P0.03 per kWh, primarily driven by the reduction in system loss charge.
Meralco’s distribution, supply and
metering charges, however, remained unchanged.
Meralco also recently reported
an-all time system loss performance of 6.47 percent and given the system loss
cap of 8.5 percent for Meralco, the difference translated into more than P4.5
billion worth of savings for customers, or a reduction of P0.12 per kWh in
2015.
“Meralco’s continuous investments in
and upgrading of its facilities, coupled with its intensified efforts to curb power
pilferage, have significantly contributed to this constant reduction in the
system loss level over the past many years. In fact, savings due to lower
system loss levels from 2008 to 2015 is equivalent to more than P22 billion or
P0.09 per kWh,”it said.
Meralco is the country’s biggest
power distributor with over 5.8 million customers in its franchise area.
No comments:
Post a Comment