Meralco power bills to go down for fifth straight month
MANILA, Philippines — Households and firms in areas serviced by Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) will see lower electricity bills for the fifth straight month in September.
A typical household consuming 200 kilowatt per hour (kWh) will save “around P12” in their power bills this month with the decline in both generation and transmission charges, Meralco said in a statement on Wednesday.
Broken down, generation charges will dip P0.0381 per kWh this month to P4.086 per kWh from last month’s P4.1241 per kWh. Meralco said the drop “marked the sixth straight month of generation rate reduction.”
Dismal demand, particularly in main economic island of Luzon, pushed down power costs from wholesale sellers also by P0.0147 per kWh this month. Prices of electricity bought from independent power producers likewise declined a bigger P0.0601 per kWh.
“Because of the reduced power demand in its service area during the community quarantine period, Meralco continued to invoke the Force Majeure provision in some of its Power Supply Arrangements,” the distributor said.
“This September, the Force Majeure claim totaled about P463 million, equivalent to customer savings of P0.1710 per kWh in the generation charge,” it added.
Apart from generation charges, transmission costs, or those paid to facilitate the transfer of electricity from generators to distributors, also posted a “slight reduction” of P0.0112 per kWh “due to lower ancillary service charges.”
Collection of universal and environment charges amounting to P0.0025 per kWh also remains suspended as directed by energy regulators.
Overall, residential customers will see their power rates down to P8.429 per kWh this September, the lowest in 3 years, Meralco said.
Before the latest downward adjustments, Meralco also cut overall rates by P0.20 per kWh last month, P0.03 per kWh in July, P0.02 per kWh in June, and P0.25 per kWh in May. In total, since May, Meralco prices have dropped P0.5623 per kWh.
Meralco is currently being asked to settle P19 million worth of penalties, representing what regulators said the distributor’s “neglect” to provide accurate power bills during the lockdown months of March to May. At the time, consumers suffered a “bill shock” from bills they said were way beyond their typical consumption.
From January to June, Pangilinan-led Meralco’s net profits dropped 43% year-on-year to P6.8 billion.
Shares at Meralco went down 2.72% to P265 apiece at close on Wednesday.
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