February power rates dropped P0.59 per kWh, says Meralco

By Alena Mae S. Flores – February 06, 2020 at 07:45 pm
from manilastandard.net

Residential consumers of power retailer Manila Electric Co. will enjoy a rate reduction of P0.59 per kilowatt-hour or P118 in a typical household’s bill for February.

Meralco said the overall rate for a typical household consuming 200 kWh fell to its lowest level in two years to P8.8623 per kWh from P9.4523 per kWh in January.

This is also Meralco’s second monthly consecutive price reduction due to lower generation charges following the implementation of new power supply agreements.

Meralco said power rates dropped by P1 per kWh in the first two months of the year, or against the five-year trend in which February rates move upward with price normalization after the reconciliation of outage allowances.

“These PSAs were secured after a successful competitive selection process under the guidance of the Department of Energy and the expeditious provisional approval of the Energy Regulatory Commission,” Meralco said.

ERC Chairman Agnes Devanadera earlier said the agency would ensure that PSAs between distribution utilities and generation companies would result in the least cost for consumers.

Generation charges decreased by P0.3949 per kWh in February to P4.5090 per kWh from P4.9039 per kWh in January.

Meralco said the new baseload PSAs―with San Miguel Energy Corp., South Premiere Power Corp. and AC Energy Inc. registered significantly lower average generation cost of P4.0372 per kWh and contributed 21 percent to Meralco’s supply requirements.

Charges from the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market, the country’s trading floor of electricity also decreased in February, because of lower power demand and improved supply condition in the Luzon grid.

The WESM rate for February reached P3.0529 per kWh while Meralco sourced 23 percent of its supply needs from the WESM during the supply period.

Meralco said these offset the higher cost of power from independent power producers and old PSAs, which increased by P0.7429 per kWh to P5.2920 per kWh.  The increase was mainly due to lower average plant dispatch resulting from the scheduled outage of Quezon Power Philippines and First NatGas-San Gabriel from Jan. 17 to 25 and Jan. 4 to 23, respectively.

Meralco sourced 56 percent of its supply from the IPPs and its old PSAs.

Taxes and other charges declined by P0.2839 per kWh, Meralco said.