Customers of Manila Electric Co. will experience a significant reduction in electricity costs this month amounting to P0.7213 per kilowatt-hour due to lower cost of generation from the company’s suppliers.
Meralco’s overall rate for a typical household went down to P11.1899 per kWh in June from P11.9112 per kWh last month.
“We have good news for July because we have a significant reduction in electricity rates of P0.72 per kWh for this month,” Meralco spokesperson Joe Zaldarriaga said.
Meanwhile, Meralco’s residential customers with an average consumption of 200 kWh will experience a decrease of around P144 in their total electricity bill.
“The higher the consumption, the bigger the reduction. The main driver is the reduction in generation of P0.64 per kWh,” Zaldarriaga said.
Meralco officials, however, cannot say yet what the impact of the El Nino weather phenomenon will be on the power rates in the months ahead Meralco head of utility economics Lawrence Fernandez said power supply is expected to remain sufficient during the period and “hopefully power prices in the market will continue to be moderated.”
Fernandez said they are also expecting a reduction from the Malampaya prices this month which will be reflected in the August generation price amid a reduction in global oil prices.
“So far we saw two factors that will move the August generation charge. First, demand went up, especially in the last week of July.
Peak demand last week was even higher than in summer, but we haven’t seen spot market prices being pushed upwards. Hopefully, that continues,” he said.
“Another one is that global oil prices have been trending downwards.
It will also push down the Malampaya prices. So there will be a repricing of the Malampaya gas price for the first half of 2023 which will be reflected in the August generation charge and we are hoping that will influence the August generation charge,” Fernandez added.
Meralco’s generation charge went down for the second straight month, dropping by P0.6436 per kWh to P6.6066 per kWh in July from P7.2502 per kWh in June.
Charges from the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market, the trading floor of electricity, went down by P2.6597 per kWh as demand decreased amid the onset of the rainy season.
Lower spot market prices reduced the imposition of the secondary price cap to only 9.21 percent of the time from 28.28 percent.