Customers of Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) will have lower charges for the fifth straight month as the September billing gets the biggest cut so far at 52.60 centavos a kilowatt-hour (kWh).
Meralco said in a statement on Monday that this would reflect a P105 cut from the bill of a typical household that consumes 200 kWh a month.
The company said the overall electricity rate for the typical household decreased to P9.0414 a kWh this September from last month’s P9.5674 a kWh.
This will mark a decrease in the electricity rate of almost P1.52 a kWh for five months since the May billings this year.
From P4.9620 a kWh last month, generation charge for September went down to P4.5191 a kWh, a decrease of 44.29 centavo a kWh.
The generation charge decrease was primarily due to lower costs from the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM), Meralco said.
WESM charges decreased by P3.6503 a kWh mainly due to improved supply conditions in the Luzon grid.
National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) did not declare any “Yellow” or “Red” Alerts during the whole supply month as compared to nine “Yellow” alerts in July.
A “Yellow” alert means the reserve generating capacity is insufficient if power plants went on unplanned or forced outage. A “Red” alert means electricity demand is likely to exceed available capacity.
Contributing to the lower WESM rate was the refund of Net Settlement Surplus (NSS) as directed by the ERC in its order dated Aug. 1 this year. The share of WESM to Meralco’s supply needs went up to 17 percent.
The cost of electricity from the Power Supply Agreements (PSAs) decreased by 15.22 cents a kWh due to lower fuel prices, Meralco said.
On the other hand, cost of electricity from the Independent Power Producers (IPPs) increased by 48.44 cents a kWh because of lower average plant dispatch and weakening of the peso against the dollar.
Around 95 percent of IPPs’ costs are dollar-denominated. PSAs and IPPs provided 44 percent and 39 percent of Meralco’s supply needs, respectively.