Respite from inflation: Meralco customers to see Oct bills cut

Residential customers of Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) will see lower electric bills for the second month in a row, this time with a decrease of 9.66 centavos per kilowatt-hour (kwh), as the firm bought more power from contract suppliers at reduced costs.

Meralco said in a statement this reduction meant a typical residential customer that consumes 200 kwh in a month will pay P19 less for the October billing.

“Despite prices of other basic goods and commodities generally going up, Meralco customers can find some relief in the decrease of power rates these past two months, as this goes against the current trend that we see with other products,” Meralco spokesperson Joe Zaldarriaga said.

He said the distribution giant’s overall rates have gone down by a net of 57 centavos per kwh since April.

This October, Meralco’s overall charge will go down to P9.977 per kwh from P10.703 per kwh in the September billing.

The generation charge alone eased by 8.11 centavos per kwh to P5.191 per kwh from P5.272 per kwh previously.

This was mainly due to a 27.9-centavo cut in Meralco purchases made through power supply agreements (PSAs). The distributor sourced 36 percent of its supply for this month from PSAs. Despite the weakening of the peso against the US dollar and the scheduled maintenance outage of the coal-fired Sual Unit 1 generator that started on Aug. 31, the cost of power from PSAs went down due to higher dispatch of the Masinloc and Ilijan power plants, according to Meralco.

Lower PSA charges offset a 4.14-centavo increase in the cost of electricity supplied by independent power producers. Prices at the wholesale electricity spot market also jumped by 29.81 centavos per kwh.