By Danessa Rivera (The
Philippine Star) | Updated December 26, 2017 - 12:00am
MANILA, Philippines — Customers of
Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) can expect power rates to go down at the start of
the year due to lower capacity fees from power generators arising from fewer
power outages.
“Hopefully there will be another
reduction in January...if we will use historical records as basis, normally
rates are lower in January,” Meralco spokesperson Joe Zaldarriaga said.
However, he said the January rates
would still have to factor in the final computation from generators and the
transmission operator.
The projected rate reduction next
month is due to lower demand that led to fewer outages from power plants during
the supply month.
“Generators are given a particular
outage allowance per year,” Zaldarriaga said, noting these are translated into
capacity fees.
Capacity fees are determined through
the annual reconciliation of outage allowances that is done at the end of each
year under the contracts approved by the Energy Regulatory Commission.
“The generators have a capacity fee per year
which is divided by the number of days that they are available,” Meralco head
of utility economics Lawrence Fernandez said.
For instance, if power generators do
not exceed their outage allowance, their capacity fees are already paid in full
and would no longer be reflected for the month of January, he said.
However, the capacity fees from
suppliers will normalize in the following month.
This month, Meralco’s overall rate
decreased by P0.3785 per kilowatt-hour (kwh) to P9.2487 per kwh, from P9.6272
per kwh in November.
The power distributor attributed the
decline to the reduction in generation charge--a power bill’s largest component,
pulled down by the appreciation of the peso and a drop in wholesale electricity
spot market (WESM) prices.
The movements of the peso-dollar
exchange largely affect the generation charge because around 97 percent of
independent power producers (IPP) costs are dollar-denominated.
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