Meralco announces second straight month of electricity cost reduction

By Alena Mae S. Flores – March 09, 2021 at 07:55 pm
from manilastandard.net

Manila Electric Co. said Tuesday consumers will enjoy lower power rates in March on lower generation cost and bill refund authorized by the Energy Regulatory Commission.

Meralco said power rates of residential customers will go down by P0.3598 per kilowatt-hour this month P8.3195 per kWh from P8.6793 per kWh in February.

It was the second straight month of downward adjustment which brought the power rates to the lowest level since August 2017.

Meralco said the March rates would translate into to a decrease of around P72 in the monthly bill of residential customers consuming 200 kWh.

“The overall rate of a typical household will decrease by P0.34 per kWh,” Meralco vice president and spokesman Joe Zaldarriaga said.

Zaldarriaga said Meralco would start implementing the Distribution Rate True-Up refund this month, the main reason for the rate reduction.

The ERC provisionally approved Meralco’s proposal to refund around P13.9 billion over a period of 24 months or until the amount was fully refunded.

The amount represents the difference between the actual weighted average tariff and the ERC-approved interim average rate for distribution-related charges for the period July 2015 to November 2020.

Meralco said that for residential customers, the refund rate would be P0.2761 per kWh and would appear in customer bills as a line item called “Dist True-Up”.

Zaldarriaga said this month’s rate would also include the ERC-approved adjustments for pass-through over/under-recoveries for the period January 2017 to December 2019.

The ERC in December directed Meralco to refund over-recoveries in transmission and other charges over a period of three months and collect an under-recovery in the generation rate for 24 months.

Meralco implemented the ERC-approved adjustments starting January 2021. This translates into a net refund of around P0.1150 per kWh.

Zaldarriaga said the lower generation charge also contributed to the overall power rate reduction. Meralco’s March generation charge reached P4.3749 per kWh, P0.0403 lower than P4.4152 per kWh in February.

“The reduction was due to the higher share of supply from the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market which registered the lowest charge among suppliers,” he said.

“Despite an increase in Luzon peak demand from 9,162 megawatts to 9,574 MW, charges from the WESM remained relatively stable at P2.4609 per kWh,” Zaldarriga said.

Meralco sourced 11.7 percent of its power supply from WESM last month compared to 7.1 percent in January.