Manila Electric Co., the biggest retailer of electricity, announced Monday a slight upward adjustment in power rate by P0.0965 per kilowatt-hour in August.
The rate translates into an increase of around P19 in the monthly bill of a residential customer consuming 200 kWh. The overall rate for a typical household rose to P9.0036 per kWh from P8.9071 per kWh in July.
Meralco vice president and spokesman Joe Zaldarriaga, however, said this month’s rate is still lower than the pre-pandemic charge of P9.5674 in August 2019 and P10.2190 in August 2018, which showed the series of competitive biddings by the company resulted in lower electricity charges.
The transmission charge for residential customers increased by P0.1331 per kWh to P0.7323 per kWh this month from P0.5992 in July on higher ancillary service charges, which accounted for about 36 percent of the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines’ total transmission charge.
“The higher rates, however, were tempered by Meralco’s continued implementation of the Distribution Rate True-Up refund, which began in March,” Zaldarriaga said.