Aug 12, 2024 - 17:10
By manilatimes.net

Meralco's rates up slightly in Aug

MANILA, Philippines — There will be a P0.0327 increase in Manila Electric Company's (Meralco's) rates in August, the power distributor said on Monday (Meralco).

According to Meralco, the increase will now bring the overall rate for a typical household to P11.6339 per kWh for August from the P11.6012 recorded in July, and for residential customers consuming 200 kWh, this would mean an increase of around P7.00 in their total electricity bill.

Meralco said the reason for the slight increase was mostly due to transmission charges, which in turn went up by P0.1086 per kWh for residential customers due to higher charges by the grid operator for ancillary service, covering reserves necessary to maintain grid reliability.

Also for this month, Meralco said ancillary service charges went up by more than 50 percent as charges for contingency and dispatchable reserves doubled.

Meanwhile, Meralco said its overall generation charge for August went down by P0.0503 per kWh, mostly as a result of lower charges from independent power producers (IPPs).

Under the generation charge, Meralco said the wholesale electricity spot market (WESM) charges for August showed an increase of P0.5940 per kWh, after the addition of the third of four installments of deferred May costs ordered by the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC).

Despite this, prices in the WESM registered a reduction for August as Luzon's average peak demand decreased by 690 MW.

In addition, the secondary price cap triggered only 2.3 percent of the time during the July supply month from the previous month's 6.6 percent.

Next, charges from Power Supply Agreements (PSAs) went up by P0.0421 per kWh in August, mainly due to higher fuel-related costs.

IPPs, WESM, and PSAs accounted for 33 percent, 27 percent, and 40 percent of Meralco's total energy requirement for the period.

For other charges, Meralco said the Universal Charge for Missionary Electrification registered a reduction of P0.0433 per kWh for August, following the completion of the recovery of ERC-approved true-up rate.

Taxes and other charges, meanwhile, registered a P0.0177 per kWh net increase for the same