Meralco rolls back power rate by P0.36 per kWh for October

Customers of the Manila Electric Company (Meralco) should expect lower bills this month as the power distributor slashed its household electricity rate for October.

In an advisory, Meralco announced a rollback of P0.3587 (P0.36) per kilowatt-hour (kWh), bringing the overall rate for a typical household to P11.4295 per kWh in October from P11.7882 per kWh in September.

The downward adjustment translates to a reduction of P72 in the total bill of a typical customer consuming 200 kWh.

Meralco earlier said that it would reduce its power rate this month due to a possible decrease in generation charge driven by lower Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM) charges as prices went down due to reduced demand brought about by cooler temperatures in the September supply month.

The power distributor said the overall rate decrease was driven by the P0.3059 per kWh reduction in generation charge due to lower WESM costs.

In particular, WESM charges were slashed by P5.1001 per kWh following the completion last month of the collection of deferred May 2024 costs ordered by the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC).

“Also contributing to the reduction was the improved supply situation in the Luzon grid as average demand and average capacity on outage went down by 544 MW and 519 MW, respectively,” Meralco said.

Increase in Independent Power Producers’ (IPPs) charges by P1.8556 per kWh was offset by the decrease in WESM costs.

Meanwhile, charges from Power Supply Agreements (PSAs) also grew by P0.1128 per kWh.

WESM, IPPs, and PSAs accounted for 24%, 26%, and 50%, respectively, of Meralco’s total energy requirement for the period.

The company added that transmission charge also dipped by P0.0383 per kWh due to lower ancillary service charges.

Taxes and other charges, likewise, went down by P0.0145 per kWh.

“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 said.

“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,” it added. — RSJ, GMA Integrated News