Meralco billing to rise in October

Residential customers of Manila Electric Co. will pay an additional 3.45 centavos a kilowatt-hour in their October billing period as the company wrapped up a regulator-approved refund to customers.

Meralco said in a statement the increase in its overall rate came as the distribution giant completed a P6.9-billion refund to customers that was distributed over the past three months.

The power distributor said this month’s rate increase would mean that a typical residential customer consuming 200 kWh would see an increase of P6.91 compared to the previous monthly bill.

Meralco’s overall rate inched up to P9.2836 a kWh this month from P9.2491 in September.

The generation charge alone increased by 17.77 centavos a kWh to P4.7155 this month from P4.5378 last month.

According to Meralco, the increase in the generation charge was mainly due to the wrap-up process of the Meralco-petitioned refund that covered the 2014-to-2016 billing periods.

“On Sept. 7, 2017, Meralco filed a manifestation with the ERC (Energy Regulatory Commission) informing the [regulator] of the necessary process of reconciliation, which resulted from the implementation of the refund through a fixed rate,” Meralco said in a statement.

The company said the reconciliation covered bill components such as the overall generation, transmission and system loss charges as well as subsidies and corresponding taxes.

In particular, the transmission charge for residential customers decreased by 5.93 centavos a kWh in October while taxes and other charges went down by 8.39 a kWh.

As for sourcing, Meralco said it saw “slight decreases” in the cost of supplies secured through power supply agreements (PSAs) and from independent power producers (IPPs), respectively attributed to higher fuel prices and lower average plant dispatch.

At the same time, prices at the wholesale electricity spot market decreased by 43.82 centavos a kWh as lower demand in September mitigated the impact of “yellow alerts”—which warn of insufficient reserve in the grid —having been declared four times.

Currently, Meralco gets 43 percent of its supply through PSAs, 45 percent from IPPs and 12 percent from the spot market.

“This month’s generation charge also includes the Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corp.’s (PSALM) net recovery of certain incremental costs incurred by National Power Corp.,” Meralco said.

The company referred to an ERC decision and order dated June 20 approving the collection from customers of affected distributors—including Meralco—of a total of P21.5 billion spread over 60 months.

“For customers in the Meralco service area, this is equivalent to a net add-on of around 1.2 centavos per kwh in the generation charge, to be remitted to PSALM,” the distributor said.