Electricity rates in the franchise area of retailer Manila Electric Co. declined by P0.1458 per kilowatt-hour to P10.0732 per kWh in September from P10.2190 per kWh in August.
Meralco said for a typical household consuming 200 kWh, this would mean a reduction of around P29 in their monthly bill.
“We are pleased to announce that despite the recent figures released on inflation and a slight depreciation of the peso, Meralco customers can find some relief in the decrease of power rates this month, as this goes against the current trend that we see with other basic goods and commodities,” said Meralco spokesperson and head of public information office Joe Zaldarriaga.
Meralco’s generation charge dropped P0.0772 to P5.2719 per kWh in September from P5.3491 per kWh in August.
Meralco attributed the lower generation chargeto the P2.0768-per-kWh decrease in Wholesale Electricity Spot Market charges.
WESM acts as the country’s trading floor of electricity.
“WESM prices decreased this month as a result of both less power plant capacity on outage and lower average demand for power in Luzon,” Meralco said.
The power distributor purchased 21 percent of its power requirements from WESM.
Meralco said lower WESM charges offset the P0.6112-per-kWh and the P0.3287-per-kWh rise in the cost of power from power supply agreements and independent power producers, respectively.
Meralco’s PSA and IPP charges increased partly because of higher fuel prices and peso depreciation.
The company purchased 39 percent and 40 percent from its PPA and IPPs, respectively.
Transmission charges also decreased by P0.0292 per kWh on lower ancillary charges from the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines. Meanwhile, taxes and other charges went down by P0.0394 per kWh this month.
Meralco’s distribution, supply and metering charges remained unchanged for 38 months, after these registered reductions in July 2015.
Meralco said it was not earning from the 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 NGCP. Taxes and other public policy charges like the FIT-All rate are remitted to the government.