Meralco to roll back rates by P.29/kwh

By Danessa Rivera (The Philippine Star) | Updated May 10, 2017 - 12:00am

http://www.philstar.com/headlines/2017/05/10/1698520/meralco-roll-back-rates-p.29/kwh

MANILA, Philippines -  Customers of Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) will see a P0.29 per kilowatt-hour (kwh) reduction in their May electricity bills, dragged down mainly by the drop in generation charge, the power distributor announced yesterday.

The overall rate for the month is P9.60 per kwh, down from P9.89 last month.

A household with 200-kwh consumption will see a decrease of P58 in their bills, P87 for 300-kwh consumption, P116 for 400 kwh and P145 for 500-kwh.

Meralco said this month’s reduction is mostly due to the downward movement in the generation charge.

“Contributing to the downward movement is the decrease in the cost of power sourced from the Independent Power Producers (IPPs) and the PSAs (Power Supply Agreements),” the company said.

Overall generation charge decreased by P0.2126 per kwh to P4.8839 per kwh, inclusive of the last installment of the incremental liquid fuel cost due to the Malampaya maintenance shutdown from Jan. 28 to Feb. 16.

The cost of power sourced from IPPs went down by P0.87 per kwh while PSA prices slipped P0.14 per kwh.

“As a result of the quarterly repricing, natural gas prices increased this month to reflect higher world crude oil costs. Despite the increase in fuel prices, there was a reduction in IPP costs because of higher plant dispatch and the recent peso appreciation,” Meralco said.

The peso appreciation also contributed to the decrease in PSA costs this month, the power distributor said.

On the other hand, there was an increase of P0.68 per kwh in power supplied through the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM) due to plant outages and higher power demand in Luzon.

However, the share of IPPs and PSA purchases to Meralco’s total requirements were higher at 38.5 percent and 40.6 percent, respectively. The share of WESM stood at 20.9 percent.

In terms of other bill components, the transmission charge registered a P0.02 per kwh increase while taxes and other charges went down by a combined amount of around P0.10 per kwh.

Meralco’s distribution, supply and metering charges, meanwhile, have remained unchanged for 22 months, after these registered reductions in July 2015.