Manila Electric Co., better known as Meralco, said Monday power rates in December decreased by P0.7961 per kiloWatt-hour due mainly to reductions in generation charges.
The reduction brought the overall rate for a typical household to P11.2584 per kWh this month from P12.0545 per kWh in November. This translates to a P159 reduction for a typical household that consumes 200 kWh a month.
Meralco, the largest power distributor in the country, said the rate reduction, which will be reflected in consumers’ electricity bill in January, effectively offsets the increases in October and November.
The generation charge for December declined to P6.5332 from P7.1938 per kWh last month due to lower charges from the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market and Independent Power Producers.
WESM charges decreased by P2.7624 per kWh with the improved supply situation in the Luzon grid as demand went down by around 421 megaWatt and average plant capacity on outage decreased by about 679 MW. Lower spot market prices avoided the imposition of a secondary price cap in November.
Charges from IPPs, meanwhile, went down by P0.4731 per kWh due to First Gas plants’ reduced use of more expensive liquid fuel and lower international coal prices. Also contributing to this was the peso appreciation, which affected around 97 percent of IPP costs that were dollar denominated.
The declines in WESM and IPP rates were slight tempered by an upward adjustment of P0.0805 per kWh in charges from Power Supply Agreements.
WESM, IPPs and PSAs accounted for 20 percent, 32 percent and 48 percent, respectively, of Meralco’s total energy requirement for the month.
Meralco’s distribution charge, meanwhile, has not moved since the P0.0360 per kWh reduction for a typical residential customer beginning August 2022.
