Manila Electric Co. announced Thursday a decrease in power bills of residential customers this month, on lower generation charges.
Meralco said the rate for households would drop by P0.2703 per kilowatt-hour to an average of P8.09 per kWh in January, the lowest since October 2009.
This translates into a reduction of P54 in the electricity bill of a household with monthly consumption of 200 kWh, Meralco said in a statement.
“The decrease this month is mainly due to the downward movement in the generation charge,” the country’s biggest power retailer said.
Meralco said generation charges went down by P0.2351 per kWh in January, lower than P3.9351 per kWh in December.
The company said at P3.70 per kWh, the generation charge was also the lowest since October 2004.
“The decrease resulted from the P0.59 per kWh decrease in the cost of power supplied by PSA [power supply agreement] plants, mainly due to lower capacity charges of Pagbilao and Ilijan,” it said.
Meralco said this reduction in capacity fees was due to the annual reconciliation of outage allowances that was done at the end of each year under the contracts approved by the Energy Regulatory Commission.
Capacity fees from these suppliers were expected to normalize in the following month. Meralco sourced 39.7 percent of its requirements from its power suppliers in December.
The cost of power from independent power producers also showed a slight reduction of P0.0005 per kWh.
“Improved dispatch of the First Gas-Sta. Rita plant effectively offset the effects of the lower dispatch levels of Quezon Power and First Gas-San Lorenzo,” according to Meralco, which sourced 38.4 percent of its requirements from IPPs in December.
Overall charges from the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market had a very minimal adjustment of P0.0267 per kWh, or from P2.5398 to P2.5665 per kWh.
Meralco sourced 21.8 percent of its power requirements from WESM.
Meralco also reported a slight increase in the transmission charge of residential customers by P0.0042 per kWh. Taxes and other charges declined by a combined amount of P0.0394 per kWh.
Meralco’s distribution, supply and metering charges were unchanged for 18 months, after these registered reductions in July 2015.
Meralco, which has over six million subscribers, said it was not earning from pass-through charges, such as the generation and transmission charges. Payment for the generation charge goes to the power suppliers, while payment for the transmission charge goes to the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines.