Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) announced that their rates would go down for the fourth straight month of August amid a sufficient supply. It is because of lower demand, stronger peso and lower oil prices.
In the virtual press briefing, Meralco spokesman Joe Zaldarriaga said the overall rate for a typical household decreased by P0.2055 per kilowatt-hour, which means a reduction of around P41 in the total bill of a residential customer consuming 200 kwh, P62 for a 300-kwh consumer, P82 for a 400-kwh user and P103 for a 500-kwh household.
WESM, IPPs & PSA
The overall rate decrease is attributed to the lower generation charge, which has gone down for five straight months with a total rate decrease of more than one peso per kwh since the start of the year.
He said the generation charge decreased by P0.2103 per kwh from P4.3344 per kwh to P4.1241 per kwh mainly because of the reduction in charges from the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM) and the Independent Power Producers (IPPs).
WESM charges were P1.12 per kwh lower this month due to improved supply situation in the Luzon grid with lower average plant capacity on outage.
While the cost of power from the IPPs decreased by P0.3284 per kwh due to lower natural gas prices as a result of quarterly repricing.
Meanwhile, purchases from PSAs inched up by P0.2722 per kwh due to lower average plant dispatch and lower force majeure (FM) claims this month as compared with the previous month.
Meralco said it continued to invoke the FM provision in its PSA with First Gen Hydro Power Corp. because of the reduced power demand in its service area during the community quarantine period.
For the past five months, the savings from FM claims totaled around P1.9 billion. While the IPPs and PSAs accounted for 33.9 percent and 50.6 percent of Meralco’s total supply, respectively.
Other charges
In terms of other charges, the transmission charge for residential customers registered a slight reduction of P0.0081 per kwh due to lower ancillary service charges. This more than offset the P0.0129 per kwh net increase in taxes and other charges.
Collection of the universal charge-environmental charge amounting to P0.0025 per kwh remains suspended, as directed by the ERC.
Sources: philstar.com
Photo Sources: daw.com, filipinomirror.com, bworldonline.com, firstgen.com.ph
