Power retailer Manila Electric Co. said Thursday residential rates will drop by P0.1216 per kilowatt-hour in October, translating into a reduction of P24 in the monthly bill of consumers with a monthly demand of 200 kilowatt-hours.
Meralco said in a statement the rates of typical households declined to P8.34 per kWh this month, because of downward movement in both generation and transmission charges.
Meralco said this marked the third straight month of reduction in the overall residential rates.
The power distributor said generation charges went down by P0.0501 per kWh from P3.9439 per kWh in the previous month, resulting mainly from lower charges at the wholesale electricity spot market. This was due to lower demand in September, compared to August, it said.
“This offsets increases in IPP [independent power producers] and PSA [power supply agreements] costs brought about by higher coal prices and the weaker peso against US dollar,” Meralco said.
Meralco said the peso depreciation from 46.58 per dollar in August to 48.50 in September had an upward impact on the peso conversion of the dollar charges of the PSA and IPP plants.
Overall charges from WESM, the country’s trading floor of electricity, decreased by P1.4747 per kWh as peak demand in the Luzon grid went down by 300 MW in September from August.
Meralco purchased 16.1 percent of its power requirements from WESM in September, down from 20.6 percent in August.
Cost of power sourced from plants under PSAs with Meralco increased P0.3257 per kWh on higher fuel costs.
Meralco said the coal price in the region climbed to $67.41 per metric ton in August from $52.85 per metric ton in June 2016. Meralco sourced bulk of its power supply requirements from its PSAs at 47.4 percent.
Cost of power from IPPs also increased P0.1671 per kWh because of the weaker peso against US dollar.
Meralco purchased 36.3 percent of its supply requirements from IPPs in September.
Transmission charges also declined by P0.0558 per kWh, due to the reduction in National Grid Corp. of the Philippines’ ancillary charges.
Meralco said taxes and other charges also decreased by a combined P0.0157 per kWh.
Meralco’s distribution, supply and metering charges remained unchanged.