Meralco’s total billing charges to increase by 84 centavos/kWh this February

Photo courtesy of Meralco / Facebook

MANILA — The Manila Electric Company (Meralco) will increase its total billing charges by 84 centavos per kilowatthour (kWh) this February.

”After three consecutive months of reduction, overall power rates will increase this month by P 0.

84 per kilowatthour (kWh)…,” Meralco said in a statement Tuesday.

For households with 200 kWh monthly consumption, it will increase by Php 167.85 versus the January billing.

For those with 300 kWh monthly consumption, it will result in a billing boost of Php 251.78 over January’s bill.

Also, households with 400 kWh monthly consumption will have a higher charge of Php 335.71, while those with 500 kWh monthly consumption will get an increase of Php 419.63.

Meralco added it was mainly hiked by the generation charge, among other increases in the billings.

The generation charge, which is the charge paid to power generation companies, will increase by 52 centavos per kWh.

Meralco noted it had sourced its power capacity for January from Power Supply Agreements (PSAs) at 49 percent, Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM) at 4 percent and Independent Power Producers (IPPs) at 7 percent.

Meralco said the generation charge was triggered by the increased rate of generation companies under PSAs, the scheduled outage of Masinloc and Quezon power, and the lower output of Ilijan.

Meralco said that despite the higher trading prices in the power generation market — Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM) — the billing adjustments from prior months contributed a reduction of Php 1.15 per kWh.

The lower costs of fuel also affected the contracted power from PSAs and IPPs. Meralco noted this somehow offset the increased charges due to the outages of some plants.

Meanwhile, the transmission charge will increase the bills by 12 centavos per kWh. It is paid for the transmission line services of the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP).

Taxes and other charges, on the other hand, are to increase by Php 0.16 per kWh. Other charges includes system loss charges and lifeline subsidy.

Further, a new component of the bill – the Feed-In-Tariff (FiT) allowance – will also affect the total increase at Php 0.04 per kWh.

However, the distribution charge remains constant and will stay at its current rate until June 2015.

Meralco reiterated that it does not earn from the pass-through charges, such as the generation and transmission charges.

“Of the total bill, only the distribution, supply, and metering charges accrue to Meralco,” it stressed.