The Manila Electric Co., the largest power distribution company in the country, said Wednesday electricity rates in September will increase mainly due to a higher transmission charge.
Meralco, as the power distributor is more popularly known, said power rates will rise by P0.1543 per kiloWatt-hour, pushing the overall rate for a typical household to P11.7882 per kWh from P11.6339 per kWh in August.
For residential customers consuming 200 kWh, this translates to an increase of approximately P31 in their total electricity bill.
Meralco said the transmission charge rose in September by P0.2913 per kWh due to higher ancillary service charges following the resumption of commercial operations of the Reserve Market on 5 August.
Ancillary service charges from the Reserve Market were double those from the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines Ancillary Service Procurement Agreements, pushing the share of these charges to over 50 percent of NGCP’s transmission rate.
The increase in transmission charges more than offset the P0.1547/kWh reduction in the generation charge.
The generation charge from power supply agreements, the independent power producers, and the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market all saw reductions because of the appreciation of the peso to its strongest level since December.
The peso gain impacted 50 percent of PSA costs and 97 percent of IPP costs, which are dollar-denominated, leading to reductions of P0.2371 per kWh for PSAs and P0.0529 per kWh for IPPs. WESM charges decreased by P0.0514 per kWh, including the final installment of deferred WESM costs ordered by the Energy Regulatory Commission.
Meralco also anticipates an increase in generation costs from First Gas – Sta. Rita and San Lorenzo next month, following ERC’s approval of adjusted rates for these suppliers.
The new gas sale and purchase agreements with the First Gas plants, effective from the September 2024 supply month, will be reflected in the October billing. A cost differential between the old and new GSPAs, up to August 2024, will be recovered over 12 months starting from October 2024.
Taxes and other charges have seen a net increase of P0.0177 per kWh. These include taxes, universal charges, and feed-in tariff allowance, all of which are remitted to the government.
Meralco said its distribution charge remains unchanged since the P0.0360 per kWh reduction implemented in August 2022.
