Consumers of Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) will have to brace for higher electricity rates of P0.5738 per kilowatt hour in February due to higher cost of power from its suppliers.
The latest rate increase will bring the overall rate for a typical household to P11.9168 per kWh this month from P11.3430 per kWh in January.
Residential customers consuming an average of 200 kWh will see an increase of around P115 in their total electricity bill.
Meralco said driving this month’s overall rate increase is the generation charge, which went up by P0.4552 to P7.1020 per kWh from P6.6468 per kWh last month.
It said charges from both its Independent Power Producers (IPPs) and Power Supply Agreements (PSAs) went up.
Charges from Meralco’s IPPs increased by P1.4764 per kWh due to higher fuel costs of First Gas – Sta. Rita and San Lorenzo power plants, resulting from the increased use of imported liquefied natural gas (LNG), which was around 35 percent to 40 percent more expensive than Malampaya gas.
Charges from its PSAs also went up by P0.1558 per kWh due to higher charges from emergency PSAs and the peso depreciation, which affected around 11 percent of PSA costs that were dollar-denominated.
Meralco said mitigating a further increase in charges was higher excess energy deliveries from some PSAs, which were priced at a discount.
The power retailer sourced 32.8 percent and 46.8 percent from its IPPs and PSAs of its total energy requirement in the last supply month.
Meanwhile, the increases in IPP and PSA charges were tempered by the P0.4071 per kWh decrease in charges from the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM), the electricity spot market, due to improved supply situation in the Luzon grid.
Average demand and average capacity on outage were lower by about 502 megawatts and 101 MW, respectively, for the January supply month.
Meralco sourced 20.4 percent of its total energy requirement from the WESM during the period. Its transmission and other charges registered a net increase of 0.1186 per kWh.
This already reflected the collection resumption of the P0.0364 per kWh Feed-In Tariff Allowance (FIT-All) starting this February billing month as ordered by the Energy Regulatory Commission.
Pass-through charges for generation and transmission are paid by Meralco to the power suppliers and the grid operator, respectively, while taxes, universal charges, and FIT-All are all remitted to the government.
Meralco’s distribution charge, on the other hand, has not moved since the P0.0360 per kWh reduction for a typical residential customer beginning August 2022.
