Electricity rates may go up this month

MANILA, Philippines - Electricity rates may go up this month due to higher generation charge, according to the Manila Electric Co. (Meralco), the country’s biggest power distributor.

“As we will be coming from September’s level, we are looking at a slight upward adjustment in generation charge,” Meralco spokesman Joe Zaldarriaga said over the weekend.

The generation charge is the cost of power purchased the previous month. It accounts for roughly 60 percent of the total electricity bill.

Meralco has yet to disclose the final figures but noted that last September, the Luzon grid encountered tight supply, which could have pushed up the cost of power.

“We will be able to announce the final figures perhaps by the middle of (this) week, when we receive the billings from our suppliers,” Zaldarriaga said.

Last month, the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP) placed the Luzon grid on red alert due to tight supply brought about by forced outages of some power plants and a restriction of the Malampaya gas supply.

As a result, Meralco had implemented a manual load dropping (MLD) or scheduled blackouts from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. MLD is the process of rationing power.

A red alert means there is severe power deficiency. A yellow alert means reserves are below the minimum level set by the regulator. Yellow alert is reached when the total reserve is less than the capacity of the largest plant on line. For the Luzon grid, this is usually equivalent to 647 MW, or one unit of the Sual Power Plant.