Consumers of Manila Electric Co. will enjoy lower power bills in February after the company announced a rate reduction of P0.1185 per kilowatt-hour.
Meralco spokesman Joe Zaldarriaga said the average power bill would go down to P9.5842 per kWh in February from P9.7027 per kWh in January.
“For the second consecutive month, Meralco rates have gone down, and today we are announcing that there will be another reduction in consumers electricity bills,” Zaldarriaga said.
“The overall rate went down by almost P0.12 per kWh and this is equivalent to a decrease of P24 in the total bill of residential customers consuming 200 kWh per month,” he said.
This brings the cumulative bill reduction of P39 since the start of the year.
Meralco’s generation charge in February declined P0.2305 per kWh to P5.1957 per kWh from P5.4262 in January, on lower charges from Independent Power Producers and the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market. This offset the increase in the rate from power supply agreements.
The company said charges from Meralco’s IPPs went down by P0.3395 per kWh on higher plant dispatch of Quezon Power and First Gas-Sta. Rita power plants.
Quezon Power resumed normal operations in January after experiencing some outages and deration in December, while First Gas–Sta. Rita’s output increased following the completion of the scheduled maintenance outage of Module 10 in December.
Meralco’s IPP charges also reflected a reimbursement from Shell Philippines Exploration B.V. to First Gas, covering a portion of incremental fuel cost incurred in relation to the use of liquid fuel during unplanned Malampaya gas supply restrictions.
Zaldarriaga said these offset the increase in Malampaya natural gas prices resulting from quarterly repricing, and an increase in coal prices.
Charges from the WESM, the trading floor of electricity, fell by P13.1277 per kWh due to the significant reduction in Meralco’s purchases, which mitigated the impact of higher spot market prices during the January supply month.
Despite the lower demand because of cooler weather, the Luzon grid was placed on yellow Alert on Jan. 10 and 11 because of several forced plant outages.
The tight supply condition led to sustained high WESM prices, which triggered the imposition of the secondary price cap 28.37 percent of the time.
Meralco sourced only 0.4 percent of its energy requirement from the WESM in January.
Meanwhile, Meralco’s PSA rate increased by P0.1631 per kWh, owing to lower demand that led to lower excess energy deliveries, which are priced at a discount, from AC Energy, San Miguel Energy Corp. and South Premiere Power Corp. (Ilijan).
The lower average PSA dispatch, with San Buenaventura on scheduled maintenance until Jan. 19, also contributed to the rate increase.
Meralco procured 52.2 percent and 47.4 percent of its supply requirement from the IPPs and PSAs, respectively.
Meanwhile, transmission charges for residential customers increased by P0.0454 per kWh on higher ancillary service and power delivery service charges. Taxes and other charges also registered a net increase of P0.0666 per kWh mainly resulting from the resumption of local franchise tax recovery in accordance with Energy Regulatory Commission rules and higher effective value-added tax rates this month.
Meralco’s distribution, supply and metering charges were unchanged.