Meralco rates to go up by 10.0902/kwh this month

Bouncing back from series of tariff cuts, the rates of Manila Electric Company (Meralco) will go up this month by 10.0902 per kilowatt hour, the utility firm has announced.

For its subscribers within the threshold consumption of 200 kwhs, the total adjustment in their bills will be 118.

According to Meralco, this month’s rate hike will push up its overall tariff for December to 110.1803 per kWh from the previous month’s 110.0901 per kwh.

With reference to the company’s generation charge alone, that climbed by 10.0578 per kwh to 15.3303 per kWh from a leaner level of 15.2725 per kwh.

The other cost components that went up had been transmission charge by 10.0169 per kwh; while taxes and other charges had been higher by 10.0155 per kwh this month.

Meralco explained that the rate increase was mainly attributed to the 10.5167 and 10.1783 per kwh jump in the cost of procurement from its power supply agreements (PSAs) and contracted independent power producers.

The firm emphasized that “despite a strong peso, PSA and IPP charges increased this month due to lower average plant dispatch.”

For supply purchases from the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM), there was a massive reduction in settlement prices by 11.0268 per kWh, but this was still not enough to offset the overall cost rise within this billing month.

As explained, the softening of spot market prices had been “due to improvement in the Luzon power supply situation and a lower demand for power in November.” Meralco’s power procurement from the WESM had been at 20-percent share on its supply last month; while the share of PSAs and IPPs reached 42-percent and 38percent, respectively.