Summer power rates up

MANILA, Philippines - Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) yesterday announced a P0.23-per kilowatt-hour (kwh) increase in April electricity bills mainly due to higher generation charge.

This brings the overall power rate to P9.89 per kwh for the month versus P9.67 per kwh in March.

The difference means that an increase of P46 in bills will be seen by households with 200-kwh consumption; P69 for 300 kwh users; P92 for 400-kwh consumers; and P115 for 500 kwh customers.

Meralco said the power rate hike was driven by the upward movement in the generation charge, which rose from P4.90 per kwh to P5.10 per kwh.

The higher generation charge was, in turn, pushed up by costs sourced from independent power producers (IPPs) and the wholesale electricity spot market (WESM).

“There was lower dispatch of some plants due to outage and higher prices in the spot market,” Meralco senior vice president and head of utility economics Larry Fernandez said in a briefing yesterday.

The cost of power sourced from IPPs rose P0.39 per kwh mainly due to the lower capacity of 456-megawatt (MW) Quezon Power Philippines Ltd. Co. supplied to the grid.

The WESM price increase of P0.78 per kwh can be attributed to plant outages and higher demand. Power demand in Luzon this month rose by around 790 MW from February.

On the other hand, there was a decrease of P0.36 per kwh in power supplied through Meralco’s Power Supply Agreements and Interim Power Supply Agreements.

In terms of other bill components, the transmission charge of residential customers had a slight decrease of P0.0629 per kwh due to a decrease in ancillary service charges. Taxes and other charges went up by a combined amount of around P0.094 per kwh.

Meralco’s distribution, supply and metering charges, meanwhile, have remained unchanged for 21 months, after registered reductions in July 2015.