As weather temperatures rise, so as the electric bills of consumers with power utility giant Manila Electric Company (Meralco) announcing P0.0625 per kilowatt hour (kWh) increase on its March billing cycle to P9.6467 per kWh from the previous month’s P9.5842 per kWh.

For residential end-users in the 200-kWh band, the overall cost adjustment they in their bills would be P13.00, according to the power firm.

Meralco indicated that the tariff uptick should have been heftier, but this was cushioned because of a recent ruling of the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) ordering it to refund additional P4.8 billion to its customers.

That pay-back directive by the industry regulator, as noted by Meralco Vice President and Corporate Communications Head Joe Zaldarriaga, would entail equivalent refund of P0.1923 per kWh to the residential subscribers of the utility company.

The ERC ruling was an expansion of the initial P13.9 billion refund it mandated for Meralco’s enforcement since last year. And in the new order issued by the regulator in February this 2022, the pay-back coverage had been stretched to include December 2020 to December 2021 billing cycles.

“For residential customers, the refund is equivalent to another P0.1923 per kWh that will be implemented over a period of 12 months,” the power firm reiterated, adding that “residential customers will see a total of P0.4684 per kWh refund”, which is reflected under the ‘distribution true-up’ line item in the bills.

For the generation charge component in the rates, Meralco Vice President Lawrence S. Fernandez stated that two of its power suppliers – Quezon Power and First Gas – agreed to defer P500 million worth of collections and that redounded to cost reduction of P0.18 per kWh pass-on rate in the March billing.

The planned recovery or eventual pass-on of the deferred charges from the two generation companies, he expounded, will be staggered at the scale of P0.06 per kWh in the April, May and June billings.

Circling back to this month’s billing cycle, the power firm highlighted that the generation charge climbed by P0.2780 per kWh to P5.4737 per kWh from the previous month, and that was mainly traced to higher charges from the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market.

For the other line items in the bill, it was emphasized that transmission charges, taxes as well as other charges for residential customers incurred a net decrease of P0.0232 per kWh; while the collection of universal charge-environmental charge (UC-EC) amounting to P0.0025 per kWh remains suspended, as previously directed by the ERC.

The power utility company further explained that “with the increase in demand and the scheduled maintenance outage of Quezon Power and First Gas-San Lorenzo plants, Meralco sourced additional supply from the WESM in the February supply month.” By far, it was noted that spot market charges had been up by P13.4211 per kWh.

For its off-take from contracted independent power producers (IPPs), the charges had been up by P0.1625 per kWh “due to lower dispatch of Quezon Power and First Gas-San Lorenzo plant” – as these two plants had recently undergone scheduled maintenance shutdowns.

Meralco conveyed that the “peso depreciation against the US dollar also contributed to the increase in IPP costs – since around 97-percent of these costs are dollar-denominated.”

Correspondingly, the charges billed by the power firm’s power supply agreements (PSAs) had been jacked up by P0.1510 per kWh, “as the dispatch of First NatGas-San Gabriel plant continued to be affected by Malampaya facility’s inability to supply sufficient natural gas.”

Across suppliers, Meralco’s bulk purchases last month had been from its PSAs with a share of 53.4-percent; while the IPPs delivered 32.7-percent into its supply portfolio; and WESM procurement’s fraction in the pie was at 13.9-percent.