Meralco rates up in April

MANILA, Philippines — Customers of Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) will pay higher rates for the third straight month in April due to higher spot market prices.

Meralco said overall rates this month increased by P0.225 per kilowatt-hour, from P10.32 to P10.55 per kwh.

This is equivalent to an increase of around P45 in the bill of a residential customer consuming 200 kwh, P67.50 for 300 kwh, P90 for 400 kwh and P112.50 for 500 kwh.

Meralco said the higher rate for April is mainly due to the P0.1773 per kwh increase in the generation charge. It also takes into account the P0.12 per kwh balance from the March rate hike.

The generation charge amounted to P5.4735 per kwh from P5.2962 per kwh, driven by the higher Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM) charges, which rose P1.6441 per kwh due to tighter supply conditions in the Luzon grid.

“With warmer temperatures, the demand for power in the grid increased by about 357 megawatts. Luzon was placed on yellow alert by the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP) on Feb. 26 due to forced plant outages and restrictions in the supply of natural gas from Malampaya that affected the output of several power plants. Natural gas supply from Malampaya continued to experience restrictions from Feb. 26 to 27, March 3 to 5 and March 8 to 14,” Meralco said.

The power distributor sourced 15 percent of its total supply requirement from WESM.

On the other hand, the cost of power from Independent Power Producers (IPP) decreased P0.1412 per kwh due to improved average plant dispatch. The share of IPP purchases to Meralco’s total requirement this month was 39 percent.

Meanwhile, charges from plants under Power Supply Agreements (PSAs) remained stable, inching up by P0.0077 per kwh. PSAs provided 46 percent of Meralco’s total energy requirement.

In terms of other charges, transmission charges slightly increased by P0.0065 per kwh due to higher ancillary service charges billed by NGCP.

And with the higher generation charge, taxes and other charges also went up by P0.0412 per kwh this month.

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