Meralco cuts electricity rates for May

Customers of Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) will pay 29 centavos less per kilowatt-hour for their May bill as lower contract prices pushed down the generation charge.

In a statement, Meralco said the overall rate for May was brought down to P9.60 per kWh from P9.89 per kWh in April.

According to the company, this would translate to a decrease of P58 in the monthly bill of a typical household, which consumes 200 kWh in a month. A household billed for 100 kWh would see a reduction of P29.

Contributing to the downward movement is the decrease in the cost of power obtained from independent power producers (IPPs) and through power supply agreements (PSAs)

The generation charge alone fell by about 21 centavos to P4.88 per kWh in May from P5.10 in April.

This already takes into consideration a 22-centavo increase in generation charge, which is the second in three 22-centavo tranches being implemented to reflect the impact of the maintenance shutdown observed for the Malampaya natural-gas-to-power facilities, which happened Jan. 28 to Feb. 16.