More than 7.7 million customers of Manila Electric Company (Meralco) will likely experience relief in their power bills this August, as the utility firm is anticipating downtrend in its overall rate in this billing cycle. “While we have yet to receive the final billings from our suppliers, we expect a possible decrease in the generation charge this month,” the utility firm said. The company qualified that it had also observed “reduced demand in the last supply month,” and that is highly anticipated resulting in lower prices at the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market. It was similarly emphasized that the consistent rainy days in the past three weeks reinforced water elevation, which shored up the electricity generation of the hydro plants, have helped pull down prices in the spot market. Additionally, Meralco pointed out that “the quarterly repricing of Malampaya will also reflect the lower crude prices over the past six months.” This repricing exercise will reflect both the softening of fuel prices in the world market and the appreciation of the local currency’s value versus the US dollar. Notably, a sizeable portfolio of supply for Meralco has been coming from gas plants – primarily its contracted capacities from the gas-fired fleets of First Gen Corporation of the Lopez group; and also from the Ilijan gas plant of the San Miguel group. The utility firm further indicated that “the peso appreciation, which affects suppliers’ costs that are mostly US dollar-denominated, will help further pull down the generation charge.” The confluence of factors, the power firm reiterated, will be the major compelling drivers “to bring down the overall electricity rate for this month.” In the initial six months of this year, Meralco reported that its retail rate climbed 14-percent to average P10.68 per kilowatt-hour (kWh) versus P9.33 per kWh in the same period last year. It specified though that the uptick had been mainly due to higher generation charge, or the cost of electricity being supplied by generation companies (GenCos) – because that accounted for roughly 68-percent of its pass-on costs to the ratepayers. From the plague of rate hikes in previous billing months then, the utility company noted that the downtrend in the August billing will come off as much-needed succor to consumers’ pockets.