Higher Meralco rates expected in November

Electricity rates for November will increase by P1.24 per kilowatt hour (kWh) for a typical household with monthly consumption of 200kWh due to higher generation and other charges, the Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) said.

In a statement, Meralco said that maintenance shutdown in a number of power plants and outages in several others prompted more expensive power sourcing. This will translate to an additional P247 in the bill for November.

To mitigate the impending increase, Meralco urged its customers to manage their electricity consumption. For the holiday season, Meralco recommended the use of light emitting diode (LED) Christmas lights, which consume less electricity compared to ordinary Christmas lights.

Meralco also said that appliances should be maintained in top condition to maximize their reliability and efficiency.

In terms of the generation charge, the largest among power bill components, there will be a P0.98 per kWh adjustment this month compared with the reduction of P0.49 in October, Meralco said.

Several large power plants were put on maintenance shutdown starting last month, such as Malaya 2 (350MW: December 15, 2012–October 30, 2013); Pagbilao 2 (350MW: August 31-November 28, 2013); Sual 1 (600MW: September 14-October 21, 2013); and Sta. Rita Module 20 (250MW: October 23-28, 2013). In addition, the following plants were on forced outage: San Lorenzo Module 60 (250MW: May 28, 2013–March 16, 2014); Masinloc 1 (300MW: September 25–28, 2013); Calaca 2 (300MW: September 29–October 1, 2013); QPPL (460MW: October 5–6, 2013); and Sual 1 (600MW: October 22–26, 2013).

Tight supply conditions due to these plant outages made Meralco source more electricity from the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM), purchases from which posted an effective increase of P 8.10 per kWh.

The rate from the power supply agreements (PSAs), which remain the lowest cost source of electricity, also increased by P0.27per kWh. These were partly mitigated by a P0.10 per kWh reduction in the average cost of the independent power producers (IPPs) due to an improvement in their plant dispatch levels, Meralco said.

In terms of share to Meralco’s power requirements for the supply month of October, PSAs, IPPs and WESM accounted for 46 percent, 45 percent and 9 percent, respectively.

An increase of P0.07 per kWh was registered in the transmission charge, mainly due to the increase in the ancillary service charge of the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines.

Due to the higher generation and transmission charges, taxes (value-added tax and local franchise tax) grew by P0.08 per kWh. Similarly, other bill components such as the system loss charge went up by P0.11 per kWh.