Meralco rates up in April

By Jordeene Sheex Lagare on April 7, 2018

http://www.manilatimes.net/meralco-rates-up-in-april/390871/

Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) announced on Friday an increase of P0.2250 per kilowatt hour (kWh) this month, the third time since January.

In effect, electricity rates will now be P10.55 per kWh from P10.32 per kWh in March.

In a statement, Meralco said power rates went up because of the P0.1773 per kWh increase in the generation charge.

Typical households that consume 200 kWh will see an increase of P45 in their April bill.

For those who consume 300 kWh, there will be an increase of P67.50; for those who consume 400 kWh, P90; and for those who consume 500 kWh, P112.50.

Last month, Meralco said rates went up by P0.97 per kWh but they implemented only an P0.85 per kWh increase “to cushion the impact of the higher electricity rates on consumers,” adding that the P0.12 per kWh balance will be tacked on to the April bill.

The generation charge for April rose by P5.4735 per kWh from P5.2962 per kWh last month.

Higher rates from the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM) pushed up the April generation charge as WESM prices rose by P1.6441 per kWh because of tighter supply conditions in the Luzon grid.

With warmer temperatures, power demand in the country’s largest island surged by about 357 megawatts (MW).

The National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP) declared a yellow alert in Luzon because of forced plant outages and restrictions in the supply of natural gas from the Malampaya gas field offshore of Palawan that affected the output of several power plants.

Natural gas supply from Malampaya continued to experience restrictions from February 26 to 27, March 3 to 5, and March 8 to 14.

But the cost of power from independent power producers (IPPs) slightly offset higher WESM charges because of improved average plant dispatch.

Meanwhile, Meralco said charges from facilities under power supply agreements (PSAs) remained stable, rising by P0.0077 per kWh.

Because of higher generation charges, taxes and other charges increased by P0.0412 per kWh in April.

Transmission charge to residential customers went up by P0.0065 per kWh on higher ancillary service charges levied by the NGCP.

For 33 months, Meralco’s distribution, supply, and metering charges have remained unchanged after these rates registered reductions in July 2015.

Shares of PSAs, IPPs purchases, and WESM purchases to Meralco’s total energy requirement reached 46 percent, 39 percent and 15 percent, respectively.