Electricity bills to rise in March

Manila Electric Co. yesterday said it would implement an increase of 75 centavos out of the P1.08-per-kilowatt-hour (kWh) increase announced earlier for the February billing period.

Meralco said in a statement the remaining 33 centavos would be carried in the following billing period in March, along with whatever rate adjustment there would be for that month.

“The full increase was not implemented to cushion the impact of higher electricity rates on consumers, cognizant of the fact that there were recent price increases on fuel and other basic commodities,” the company said.

For this month’s rate increase, to be reflected in customers’ March bills, residential consumers that use up 200 kWh would see an additional P150 compared to the previous monthly bill.

Meralco’s overall rate went down to P9.47 a kWh this month from P8.72 in January.

The latest rate adjustment was mainly due to an 84.69-centavo-per-kWh increase in the overall generation charge.

The distribution giant said that of such amount, it would reflect 57.80 per kWh this February, with the generation charge going up to P4.6548 per kWh from P4.0768 in January.

“The difference shall be implemented in the March bill,” the company said.

“After the reduction in PSA (power supply agreement) charges reflected in January due to the early completion of annual capacity fee payments for the previous year, capacity fees returned to levels prescribed in the PSAs,” it added.

According to Meralco, suppliers with which the distribution giant has long-term PSAs—particularly suppliers that run the Pagbilao and Ilijan power plants—effected a P1.7607-per-kWh increase in rates, which have “return[ed] to normal levels.”