Meralco rates to increase slightly in October billing

Customers of Manila Electric Company (Meralco) are in for slight uptick in their electric bills this month for an average of 10.0448 per kilowatt hour (kWh), yielding an overall increase in household bills of 19.00 for those in the 200-kWh consumption bracket.

This billing cycle’s rate adjustment will place overall Meralco’s pass-on tariff at 19.0862 per kWh from the previous month’s 19.0414 per kWh. The generation charge, which accounts for the biggest component of the rates being reflected in the bills of consumers, had a marginal climb of 10.0215 per kWh to 14.5406 from the September charge of 14.5191 per kWh.

On the other cost components, the transmission charge for residential endusers had been slightly up by P0.0249 per kWh due to the ancillary services charge of National Grid Corporation of the Philippines; while taxes and other charges had been down by 10.0016 per kWh.

This billing’s lean rate hike follows series of five-month straight reductions on Meralco’s rates that correspondingly pulled down its overall pass-on tariff by an aggregate 11.47 per kWh – persisting since April this year. On supply sourcing, Meralco indicated that overall supply procurement from the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM) had been lower by 10.5290 per kWh; but there was a slight counterweight to that because the net settlement surplus for the October billing had already been smaller.

Meanwhile, for the lower cost of WESMsourced supply, it has been noted that such was mainly driven “by an improved power supply situation in the Luzon grid as there were fewer power plants outage during the supply month.”