Meralco rates lower in January

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Meralco rates lower in January

AFP

The generation charge – the biggest chunk of a power bill – is likely to go down due to the continuous fuel price rollback

MANILA, Philippines – The Manila Electric Company (Meralco) announced a possible lower bill its clients in January, providing some relief for consumers faced with higher commuter train fares and an increase in water bills.

The generation charge, the biggest component of an electricity bill, is likely to go down this month, Meralco spokesperson Joe Zaldarriaga said Tuesday, January 6.

“There is a possibility of lower generation cost based on our initial analysis and primarily this may be due to lower effective price of fuel cost and lower incidence of plant outages,” he said.

The utility firm will provide final figures within the week.

In December 2014, Meralco customers experienced a P0.19 ($0.0042*) per kilowatt hour (kWh) drop in their electricity bills, or roughly P38 ($0.84) for those with an average monthly consumption of 200 kWh.

The generation charge fell by P0.17 ($0.0038) per kWh to P4.94 ($0.11) per kWh, the lowest level for 2014.

The reduced generation charge was mainly driven by lower charges from the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM) – by P1.70 ($0.038) per kWh due to the normal operations of the power plants in November.

WESM charges also decreased due to the completion in October of adjustments from prior months, including additional Must-Run Unit (MRU) compensation for Malaya and the secondary cap additional compensation for the supply months of May and June last year, accounting for around P0.09 ($0.0020) of the P0.17 ($0.0038) per kWh decrease in generation charge this November.

The lower WESM charges also offset the slight P0.10 ($0.0022) per kWh and P0.03 ($0.0007) per kWh increases in the average rates of the Independent Power Producers (IPPs) and plants under Power Supply Agreements (PSAs), respectively.

WESM (4%), IPPs (43%), and PSAs (53%) accounted for the share of Meralco’s total power requirements in November.

The supply situation in Luzon also improved especially after Sual’s Unit 1 (647 megawatt) came back online after a month-long maintenance shutdown in October.  Rappler.com

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