Meralco rates increase this month

MANILA, Philippines - Consumers will see slightly higher electricity bills this month as the Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) announced an increase of P0.1338 per kilowatt-hour (kwh) in overall rates due to an increase in generation charge.

Meralco’s overall rate is at P8.3849 per kwh for the month of August from last month’s P8.2511 per kwh.

A typical residential household consuming 200 kwh will see a net adjustment of P26.76 in their August bills. Those consuming 300 kwh, 400 kwh and 500 kwh will see an increase of P40.14, P53.52 and P66.90, respectively, in their bills.

Meralco said this month’s rate reflects the last installment of the refund of the P6.9-billion over-recovery on pass-through charges from January 2014 to December 2016, which tempered the increase in generation charge.

The main driver for the increase is the overall generation charge, which rose by P0.0378 kwh from P3.9385 per kwh in July to P3.9763 per kwh this month. 

Meralco said the higher generation cost is due to higher charges from power supply agreements (PSAs) and of Independent Power Producers (IPPs), which account for 45.6 percent and 44 percent, respectively.

The cost of power from PSAs increased by P0.2222 per kwh due to lower plant dispatch resulting from forced outages of Masinloc and Pagbilao.

Meanwhile, the cost of power sourced from the IPPs increased by P0.0642 per kwh because of the quarterly repricing of Malampaya natural gas, which tracked higher natural gas prices to reflect higher world crude oil prices.

Mitigating the increase in PSAs and IPPs rates was the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM) charge, which decreased by P0.9768 per kwh. It has a share of 10.4 percent in the generation cost.