Power rates may go up in September as higher fuel costs pushed up generation charges, an executive of Manila Electric Co. said Wednesday.
“Although we have yet to receive the final billings from our suppliers, there may be upward pressure on the generation charge this month,” Meralco vice pesident and spokesman Joe Zaldarriaga said.
Zaldarriaga said the forecasted increase in generation rates “is expected to be driven by higher fuel prices in the world market during the supply month.”
World oil prices went up in the past two months, leading to nine straight weeks of domestic pump price hikes.
“The depreciation of the peso against the US dollar is expected to have an impact as well on our suppliers’ charges for the incoming billing month,” he said.
Zaldarriaga said these factors “can somehow be mitigated by lower WESM [Wholesale Electricity Spot Market] charges that may result from lower demand and lower average capacity on outage.”
The WESM is the trading floor of electricity where the company sources part of its monthly power supply requirements.
Meralco announced a reduction in August electricity rates of P0.2908 per kilowatt-hour, with the overall rate for a typical household going down to P10.8991 per kWh from P11.1899 per kWh in July.
Residential customers consuming 200 kWh saw their rates go down by P58 in their monthly electricity bill.