The deferred pass-on of generation charges that was ordered by regulators could reflexively inflate electricity rates to be reflected in the bills this month, hence, the customers of Manila Electric Company (Meralco) are being prompted to brace for highly probable hike in rates that they shall be paying for.

According to the utility firm, there would already be P0.77 per kilowatt hour (kWh) that shall be automatically added into the bills starting this July, due to the charges of the power suppliers of Meralco that had been temporarily stopped from collection in the last billing cycle.

The pass-on of deferred charges will last for three months, hence, the additional P0.77 per kWh will be carried on in the bills until September this year.

Meralco customers, in particular, were able to enjoy hefty reduction of P1.9623 per kWh in their June billing, but that just entailed delaying the bad news because they would still burden that added financial pain in a span of three months.

Due to the staggered pass on of the invoiced charges from the generation companies (GenCos), the initially-calculated increase of P0.6436 per kWh in the June bills had been subsequently reversed.

The power firm indicated that they are still waiting for invoices from all of their suppliers; hence, there is no final calculation yet for the overall tariff that shall be passed on to their customers this month.

Meanwhile, the operator of the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM) had reported downtrend in spot settlement prices, with the last supply month averaging lower to P6.15 per kWh from the last billing cycle’s P8.22 per kWh.

Specifically for the Luzon grid, the reduction in spot prices had been a significant P2.31 per kWh to P8.28 per kWh from P5.97 per kWh.

For Visayas, there was just a marginal decline to P8.56 per kWh versus last supply month’s P8.81 per kWh; while Mindanao spot prices also declined significantly to P4.61 per kWh from P7.26 per kWh.

Due to the colder temperatures and with the onset of the rainy season, supply availability similarly escalated to 19,638 megawatts vis-à-vis demand at 14,710MW.

Luzon supply, in particular, hovered at a comfortable level of 13,860MW as against peak demand level of 10,644MW – essentially reversing the tight supply conditions experienced in the grid within the stretch of the summer months.