Manila Electric Co. will increase electricity rates this month by P0.3436 per kilowatt-hour for a typical residential household, bringing the overall rate to P9.6272 per kWh from last month’s P9.2836 per kWh.
The rate increase will translate into P68.72 for a typical residential household consuming 200 kWh a month.
“The November rate increase is mainly due to the P0.1925 per kWh increase in generation charge,” Meralco said in a statement.
Meralco’s overall generation charge increased in November by P0.1925 per kWh to P4.9080 per kWh from P4.7155 per kWh in October mainly due to higher WESM charges and the depreciation of the peso against the US dollar.
Charges from the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market increased by P0.4810 per kWh.
“Despite the reduction in Luzon power demand this month, spot market prices increased due to tighter supply conditions,” the power retailer said.
Meralco purchased 15 percent of its power requirements from the WESM last month.
Cost of power from Independent Power Producers and Power Supply Agreements also registered increases due to the weakening of the peso against the US dollar.
The currency depreciation has a much larger impact on independent producers because around 97 percent of IPP costs are dollar-denominated.
The cost of power from Meralco’s IPPs rose by P0.2868 per kWh due to lower average plant dispatch following the scheduled outage of San Lorenzo Module 50 for the entire supply month.
Despite higher fuel prices, Meralco said the increase in cost of PSAs was tempered to P0.0076 per kWh due to the improvement in average plant dispatch.
Meralco secured 41 percent of its power requirements from its IPPs and 44 percent from its PSAs last month.
The transmission charge of residential customers increased P0.0860 per kWh due to higher NGCP ancillary service charges. Consequently, taxes and other charges also went up by P0.0651 per kWh this month.
Meralco’s distribution, supply, and metering charges, meanwhile, have remained unchanged for 28 months, after the registered reductions in July 2015.
Meralco reiterated it does not earn from the pass-through charges, such as the generation and transmission charges.
Payment for the generation charge goes to the power suppliers, while that of the transmission charge goes to the NGCP.
Taxes and other public policy charges like the feed in tariff -allowance are collected by government.
As the electricity rate increases this month, Meralco, which has over six million customers, advised customers to continue practicing energy efficiency initiatives to help manage their power consumption.