Higher transmission charge raised March power rates

By Alena Mae S. Flores – March 8, 2024, 8:40 pm
from manilastandard.net

Consumers of Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) will experience a minimal increase in March electricity rates of P0.0229 per kilowatt-hour on higher ancillary charges.

“Our earlier projection of a lower generation charge would have resulted in lower overall rates. However, the steep upward adjustment in the transmission charge effectively wiped out the reduction in generation charges, causing a slight uptick in overall rates,” said Meralco vice president and head of corporate communications Joe Zaldarriaga.

Meralco said in a statement this brought the overall rate for a typical household to P11.9397 per kWh this month from P11.9168 per kWh in February.

It said residential customers consuming 200 kWh would see an increase of less than P5 in their monthly electricity bill.  However, consumers with bigger power consumption will experience higher increase, it said.

“Driving this month’s overall rate increase is the P0.3976 per kWh increase in the transmission charge for residential customers due to higher ancillary service charges, which more than tripled this month and now account for around 52 percent of total transmission costs,” the company said.

Meralco said ancillary charge increase was tempered by a P0.3518 per kWh reduction in the generation charge.

Charges from Meralco’s power supply agreements (PSAs) went down by P0.3045 per kWh on lower energy payments for South Premier Power Corp. (SPPC) emergency PSAs and the resumption of operations of the San Buenaventura Power Ltd. Co. (SBPL) power plant after undergoing scheduled maintenance.

Meralco sourced bulk of its power requirement for the February supply month from the PSAs, accounting for 51 percent. Charges from Meralco’s independent power producers (IPPs) also went down by P0.1443 per kWh, reflecting deductions of natural gas costs for First Gas Power Corp.–Sta. Rita under its new gas sale and purchase agreement (GSPA), as directed by the Energy Regulatory Commission.

These were equivalent to generation charge reductions of P0.0447 per kWh and P0.0866 per kWh for the January and February 2024 supply months, respectively.

Charges from the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM) also went down by P0.1131 per kWh as the supply situation improved.

Meralco said the average capacity on outage in the Luzon grid decreased by more than 300 megawatts.

Meralco procured 27 percent and 22 percent from the IPPs and the WESM, the trading floor of electricity, respective, of its total energy requirement for the period.

Other charges also went down by P0.0229 per kWh.