Manila Electric Co., the largest power distributor in the country, said Friday power rates will be lower in the February billing cycle on account of a net decline in the generation charge.
Meralco, as the business is more widely known, said electricity rates will be reduced by P0.0106 per kiloWatt-hour this February, bringing the overall rate for a typical household down to P10.8895 per kWh from the January’s P10.9001 per kWh. Power rates in February will be reflected in consumer electricity bills in March
For residential customers consuming 200 kWh, the adjustment is equivalent to a decrease of around P2 in their total electricity bill.
Meralco said the generation charge declined by P0.2137 to P6.9154 from P7.1291 per kWh in January because of lower costs of power sold on the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market and by Independent Power Producers.
WESM charges decreased by P3.7370 per kWh as the supply situation in the Luzon grid improved with less generation capacity outage, lower demand, and absence of yellow alerts. The secondary price cap was also not triggered, marking the first time since October 2021 that the cap was not imposed during a supply month. WESM accounted for 16 percent of Meralco’s energy requirement in the period from the previous month’s 9 percent.
Charges from IPPs were also down P0.2950 a kWh because of lower-priced natural gas.
These reductions more than offset the increase in charges under several power supply agreements—the main source of electricity distributed by Meralco. PSA charges rose by P0.7970 a kWh due to lower average plant dispatch.
