Customers of Manila Electric Company (Meralco) will gain slight relief on their wallets and paychecks this month because the pass-on rate of the utility firm will go down by P0.0352 per kilowatt hour (kWh) in its December billing.
That will be a downtrend in the overall tariff of the company to P8.4753 per kWh from the previous billing cycle’s P8.5105 per kWh.
For consumers in the usage threshold of 200 kWhs monthly, that will redound to aggregate cost reduction of P7.00 in their bills in the current month.
If reckoned from the overall rate decline that Meralco had already posted since the start of the year, that will be a net rate cut of P1.3870 per kWh in the 12-month stretch; and that translated to total reduction of P277 for residential end-users in the 200-kWh consumption band.
For the lower tariff this month, Meralco primarily attributed it to the P0.0502 per kWh downtrend in generation charge to P4.1516 per kWh this December from P4.2018 per kWh a month ago.
The other rate components, primarily the transmission charge owing to ancillary services, had also been slightly lower by P0.0044 per kWh; while taxes and other charges registered a net increase of P0.0194 per kWh.
On power procurements, “all sources of supply registered lower charges this month,” the utility firm said, with it emphasizing the P0.1881 per kWh reduction in the charges of the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market.
Meralco explained that “the Luzon grid’s power supply situation improved in November following a drop in demand which decreased due to successive weather disturbances.”
For supply sourced from its contracted independent power producers, this had been lower by P0.2577 per kWh and this was generally attributed to “improved average plant dispatch and the peso appreciation.”
On the other, the power supply agreements (PSAs) yielded overall cost reduction of P0.0214 per kWh in their charges to Meralco.
The power utility firm indicated that it secured 52-percent of its supply portfolio last month from PSAs; 39-percent from its contracted IPPs; and the balance of 9.0-percent from the spot market.
It similarly noted that the collection of universal charge-environmental charge, which is a separate line item in the bill at P0.0025 per kWh, had remained suspended in the current billing period.
On payments, Meralco reminded its customers that for maximum safety and convenience, it is encouraging them use online platforms in settling their bills.