Power generation charges may remain flat in September on low demand arising from the imposition of the enhanced community quarantine for the National Capital Region, Manila Electric Co. said Monday.
“The generation charge for September might be flattish as lower demand due to the return to ECQ of NCR and neighboring regions starting Aug. 6 mitigated the impact of higher plant outages during the supply month,” Meralco vice president Joe Zaldarriaga said.
Meralco’s generation charge in August was at P4.9322 per kilowatt-hour.
Zaldarriaga noted an upward pressure on the generation charge to reflect the adjustments of the Independent Electricity Market Operator of the Philippines in the July bill of the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market. IEMOP operates the WESM, the trading floor of electricity.
“IEMOP made significant corrections on the Net Settlement Surplus component of the WESM bill,” Zaldarraiga said.
“The total rate will also be affected by the movement of the transmission charge, which caused the increase in August 2021 rates,” he said.
Meralco’s power rates went up by P0.0965 per kWh for August, equivalent to an increase of around P19 in the total bill of a residential customer consuming 200 kWh mainly as a result of a higher transmission charge.
The transmission charge for residential customers went up by P0.1331 per kWh to P0.7323 per kWh in August from P0.5992 in July on higher ancillary service charges, which accounted for about 36 percent of the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines’ total transmission charge.
The higher rates, however, were tempered by Meralco’s continued implementation of the Distribution Rate True-Up refund, which began in March.
The refund rate for residential customers is at P0.2761 per kWh and appears in customer bills as a line item called “Dist True-Up.”