Meralco rates fall for 4th straight month

Customers of Manila Electric Co. will enjoy lower charges for the fourth straight month, with the August billing getting the biggest cut so far at 41.76 centavos a kilowatt-hour (kWh) as improved supply conditions sent spot prices falling.

Meralco said in a statement that this month’s price reduction represented a decrease of P84 in the bill for a typical residential customer consuming 200 kWh a month.

The company said that for the August billing period, its overall charge went down to P9.5674 a kWh from P9.9850 in the July billing period.

The generation charge alone went down by 46.07 centavos a kWh to P4.962 from P5.4227 previously.

Meralco said the cost of electricity bought from the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM) went down by P6.208 a kWh as the supply situation improved in the Luzon grid.

“While National Grid Corporation of the Philippines placed Luzon on yellow alert in the first half of July, there was no red alert during the whole month,” Meralco said. “The share of WESM to Meralco’s supply needs went up to 11 percent.”

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.

However, there was an increase of 9.11 centavos a kWh in the cost of electricity sourced from independent power producers, which provided 41 percent of Meralco’s supply.

This happened despite the strengthening of the peso against the US dollar and lower fuel prices as a result of quarterly repricing of Malampaya natural gas and continued decline in coal prices

The distribution giant said higher IPP costs were largely due to lower average plant dispatch with the scheduled maintenance work at the Sta. Rita power plant in Batangas last month.

“This was offset as cost of power from the Power Supply Agreements (PSAs) decreased by 6.56 centavos a kWh due to lower fuel prices and peso appreciation,” Meralco added.