posted May 05, 2016 at 11:50 pm by Alena Mae S. Flores
Electricity rates may go down this
month, on lower generation charges, power retailer Manila Electric Co. said
Thursday.
“There are strong indications that
we could see a generation charge reduction this May,” Meralco senior vice
president Lawrence Fernandez said.
Fernandez said the cost of power
produced by the natural gas plants of Ilijan, Sta Rita and San Lorenzo with a
combined capacity of 2,700 megawatts “all registered reductions, largely
because of the downward repricing of Malampaya natural gas.”
“These three [natural gas] suppliers
account for almost half of Meralco’s requirements,” Fernandez said.
“For the coal-fired suppliers, we
saw reductions in Calaca and Masinloc, which both offset higher charges from
Pagbilao,” Fernandez said.
The 735-megawatt Pagbilao coal plant
was undergoing scheduled maintenance for much of the April supply month,
resulting in reduced dispatch level.
Fernandez said he was hoping that
“there are no other adjustment that would reverse the direction” of electricity
prices for May.
“We’re still waiting for other
billings,” he said.
Meralco’s power rates went up by
P0.22 per kilowatt-hour in April due to the higher generation charges and the
implementation of the feed-in tariff allowance.
“Main drivers for this increase in
the rate are the higher generation charge and the imposition of an additional
P0.08 per kWh on the feed-in tariff allowance,” Meralco said earlier.
Meralco said the higher power demand
amid the hot weather also resulted in higher charges from the wholesale
electricity spot market, the country’s trading floor of electricity .
“The increase in the rates was
primarily due to the generation charge, which increased by P0.10 per kWh from
last month. At P4.10 per kWh, it is P1.31 per kWh lower compared to April
2015’s P5.41 per kWh,” Meralco said.
The company attributed the increase
in the generation charge in April to the higher charges from the WESM, which
went up by P2.23 per kWh.
Peak demand in the Luzon grid
increased by more than 500 MW from the February to the March supply months with
the approach of summer.
Meralco said costs of energy sourced
from the power supply agreements and independent power producers registered
slight reductions of P0.02 and P0.01 per kWh, respectively.
“These reductions in the PSA and IPP
charges were mainly due to the higher dispatch of a number of plants under
them, along with the appreciation of the peso in March,” Meralco said.
Meralco sourced bulk of its power
requirements from PSAs accounting for 49.2 percent, followed by IPPs at 45.6
percent. Meralco sourced 5.1 percent of its power requirements from WESM in
March.
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