MANILA, Philippines — Electricity rates will go down slightly this month due to lower generation charge amid rising prices of fuel and other basic commodities, the country’s biggest power distributor announced yesterday.
According to the Manila Electric Co. (Meralco), there will be a P0.0966 per kilowatt-hour reduction in power rates for October – the second consecutive reduction – as overall charges went down to P9.9766 per kwh.
This will mean a P19.32 reduction in the monthly bill of a typical household consuming 200 kwh, P28.98 for 300 kwh, P38.64 for 400 kwh and P48.30 for 500 kwh.
“We are pleased to announce that despite prices of basic goods generally going up, Meralco customers can find some relief in the decrease of power rates in the past two months,” said Joe Zaldarriaga, Meralco spokesman and head of public information office.
The power distributor noted that electricity rates registered a net decrease of 57 centavos per kwh since April.
The generation charge, the largest component of the electricity bill, went down to P0.0811 per kwh from P5.2719 to P5.1908 per kwh.
Meralco said the decrease in generation charge was the result of P0.2790 per kwh reduction in charges of power supply agreements (PSA). It sourced 36 percent of its total electricity requirements from PSA purchases.
“Despite the weakening of the peso against the US dollar and the scheduled maintenance outage of Sual Unit 1, the cost of power from PSAs went down due to higher dispatch of the Masinloc and Ilijan plants,” Meralco said.