Power rates to go up this month

MANILA, Philippines - After six straight months of paying lower power rates, customers of Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) will see their November bills go up in step with higher generation charge for the period.

In a statement, Meralco said overall rates for its residential customers this November will go up by P0.13 per kilowatt-hour to P8.55 per kwh.

A typical household consuming 200 kwh will see an increase of P25.19, P37.78 for 300 kwh users, P50.38 for 400 kwh users and P62.97 for 500 kwh users.

Meralco said this month’s overall rate is still P1.51 lower than the P10.06 per kwh rate in November 2014. The overall rate is also the second lowest since January 2010, it added.

The rate hike stemmed from the higher generation charge for the month, which increased by P0.09 per kwh to P4.08 per kwh.

Pushing the generation charge was the P1.19 per kwh increase in Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM) charges.

“This was mainly due to increased outages of a number of power plants during the October supply month,” Meralco said.

Meanwhile, the average rate of independent power producers (IPP) also rose by P0.10 per kwh.

“This was primarily due to lower dispatch of the plants, which was partly offset by lower natural gas prices,” Meralco said.

Plants under the power supply agreements (PSAs), on the other hand, reported slight decline of P0.02 per kwh in rate mainly due to the higher dispatch of Sual, which logged a shorter outage duration for the October supply month compared to the previous month, the distribution company added.

Other bill components also registered upward adjustments for the period.

Transmission charge increased by P0.02 per kwh due to the higher ancillary service charges.

Taxes and other charges like system loss and subsidies also recorded a combined increase of P0.02 per kwh with the increases in the generation and transmission charges.

Meralco’s distribution, supply and metering charges remain unchanged after last July’s reduction.