Meralco customers seen enjoying lower bills this month

MANILA, Philippines—Electricity consumers in the Manila Electric Co.’s (Meralco) franchise area may enjoy lower bills this month due to normalized power supply in Luzon. Part of Meralco’s network will enjoy even lower bills as the firm refunds some P58 million to those who paid the December charges that were covered by the restraining order of the Supreme Court.

Power supply trends and even spot market prices appeared more tame in the February supply month, for which customers would be billed this month, Meralco spokesman Joe R. Zaldarriaga said in an interview. The final computation for the generation charge is expected to be issued either this weekend or early next week.

“There are indications the generation charge will be near the current level or possibly go down,” Meralco head of utility economics Lawrence S. Fernandez said separately in a phone interview.

“The power plant operations are normal and electricity demand seemed slightly softer or moderate. It could be due to the cooler weather in February,” he pointed out.

As for the deferred December charges, “the refund will amount to maybe P58 million,” Zaldarriaga said. Meralco has about 5.5 million customers. About 7 percent, or 430,000 customers, received bills stating the deferred amount. Of those who got that type of bill, 8 percent, or 37,000, had apparently paid the deferred amount.

Last month, Meralco said there was a reduction of 13.14 centavos a kilowatt-hour in the generation charge to P5.54 from the P5.67 collected in January. Households consuming 101 kWh in a month would have paid P13.27 less in their power bills for February, while those with a 200-kWh consumption saw a P26.28 decrease. Households consuming 300 kWh and 400 kWh monthly enjoyed reductions of P39.42 and P52.56, respectively.

Meralco said the February generation charge could have represented a P4.69-per-kWh reduction from the actual generation charge of P10.23 a kWh for January. However, the generation charge for January was capped at P5.67 a kWh due to a TRO by the Supreme Court.

On Dec. 9, 2013, ERC approved Meralco’s record rate increase of P4.15 a kWh (a generation charge increase of P3.44 a kWh plus taxes) to be charged in three tranches in December, February and March. However, the Supreme Court on Dec. 23 stopped the rate increase with a temporary restraining order that kept generation rates steady at P5.63 a kWh as various groups contested the actual charge of P9.107 a kWh for December.