The customers of Manila Electric Company (Meralco) can heave slight relief in their February billing, as the power utility firm’s overall rates will be down by P0.0704 per kilowatt hour (kwh) to P8.6703 from last month’s P8.7497 per kwh.
For residential customers in the usage bandwidth of 200-kilowatt hours, the overall cost reduction in their bills will be to the tune of P14, according to the power distribution company.
On a month-on-month comparison, it was emphasized that this year’s February tariff is lower by P0.1830 per kwh versus last year’s P8.8623 per kwh in the same month.
Meralco mainly attributed this month’s power rate reduction to the lower generation charge, which is the biggest pass-through component in the electric bills.
The generation charge for February billing cycle was pared by P0.0422 per kwh to P4.4152 per kwh as against P4.4574 per kwh in the January supply month.
Meanwhile, the pass-through transmission charge this month had declined by P0.0128 per kwh, mainly because of lower ancillary service charges of National Grid Corporation of the Philippines; then taxes and other charges had likewise posted net decrease of P0.0154 per kwh.
As explained by the utility firm, “the reduction in generation charge this month is due to lower fixed charges from the power supply agreements” – in reference to its capacity-offtake from private power suppliers.
Meralco qualified though that its procurement of supply from contracted independent power producers (IPPs) had gone up by P0.2103 per kwh “due to lower average plant dispatch, higher Malampaya natural gas prices due to quarterly repricing and the peso depreciation.”
Further, the power firm noted that its supply sourcing from the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM) yielded overall higher rate of P0.9577 per kwh “due to higher average plant capacity on outage in the Luzon grid.”
The utility company similarly indicated that its rate adjustment this month ended lower amid the pass-on of its mandated refund; as well as its move to recoup under-recoveries as earlier approved by the Energy Regulatory Commission.
“Meralco implemented the ERC-approved adjustments starting January 2021 billing. The initial impact to residential customers is a net refund of around P0.1150 per kwh,” the distribution company emphasized.
The supply portfolio of the utility firm in the last supply month had been predominantly from its PSAs at 53.4-percent; then from its contracted IPPs for 39.5-percent share in the pie; and the balance of 7.1-percent had been from the spot market.