MANILA, Philippines — There will be a P0.0327 increase in Manila Electric Company’s (Meralco’s) rates in August, the power distributor said on Monday (Meralco).
According to Meralco, the increase will now bring the overall rate for a typical household to P11.6339 per kWh for August from the P11.6012 recorded in July, and for residential customers consuming 200 kWh, this would mean an increase of around P7.00 in their total electricity bill.
Meralco said the reason for the slight increase was mostly due to transmission charges, which in turn went up by P0.1086 per kWh for residential customers due to higher charges by the grid operator for ancillary service, covering reserves necessary to maintain grid reliability.
Also for this month, Meralco said ancillary service charges went up by more than 50 percent as charges for contingency and dispatchable reserves doubled.
Meanwhile, Meralco said its overall generation charge for August went down by P0.0503 per kWh, mostly as a result of lower charges from independent power producers (IPPs).
Under the generation charge, Meralco said the wholesale electricity spot market (WESM) charges for August showed an increase of P0.5940 per kWh, after the addition of the third of four installments of deferred May costs ordered by the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC).
Despite this, prices in the WESM registered a reduction for August as Luzon’s average peak demand decreased by 690 MW.
In addition, the secondary price cap triggered only 2.3 percent of the time during the July supply month from the previous month’s 6.6 percent.
Next, charges from Power Supply Agreements (PSAs) went up by P0.0421 per kWh in August, mainly due to higher fuel-related costs.
IPPs, WESM, and PSAs accounted for 33 percent, 27 percent, and 40 percent of Meralco’s total energy requirement for the period.
For other charges, Meralco said the Universal Charge for Missionary Electrification registered a reduction of P0.0433 per kWh for August, following the completion of the recovery of ERC-approved true-up rate.
Taxes and other charges, meanwhile, registered a P0.0177 per kWh net increase for the same period.
Pass-through charges for generation and transmission are paid to the power suppliers and the grid operator, respectively, while taxes, universal charges, and Feed-in Tariff Allowance (FIT-All) are all remitted to the government.
Meralco’s distribution charge, on the other hand, has not moved since the P0.0360 per kWh reduction for a typical residential customer in August 2022.
Lastly, Meralco reminds customers of a possible increase in generation costs from First Gas – Sta. Rita and San Lorenzo, which use Malampaya gas for August.
According to Meralco, the reason for this is that with the expiration of the old Gas Sale and Purchase Agreement (GSPA) in July, the supply of Malampaya natural gas to San Lorenzo was now governed by the new GSPA between First Gas and the Malampaya Consortium, similar to Sta. Rita.
However, Meralco said that the pricing formula under the old GSPA for both plants continued to be applied pending regulatory approval of the new GSPA.
“Once the new GSPAs are approved, this will certainly affect the generation charges of Sta. Rita and San Lorenzo,” Meralco Vice President and Head of Corporate Communications Joe R. Zaldarriaga said.
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