What Gives? Meralco Announced a 0.46% Decrease in November. WESM Decreased by 36%. QPPL Increased by 18.49%.
David Celestra Tan, MSK
5 December 2020
“We are happy to report a P0.04-per-kWh reduction in the rates of our customers for this month of November,” Meralco spokesman Joe Zaldarriaga said.
In its press release in the Manila Standard and Business Mirror, Meralco explains some of the factors that caused the reduction in rate.
1. Power rates will decrease by P0.0395 per kilowatt-hour in November to P8.5105 per kWh from P8.55 per kWh in October.
2. The lower rate is equivalent to around P8 in savings in the monthly bill of residential customers consuming 200 kWh.
3. Meralco’s generation charge decreased P0.0215 per kWh to P4.2018 per kWh in November from P4.2233 per kWh in October because of the P1.28-per-kWh reduction in charges from the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market, the country’s trading floor for electricity.
Charges at WESM declined on the improved power supply situation in the Luzon grid in October.
4. Meanwhile, the cost of power from Meralco’s independent power producers also went down by P0.0842 per kWh following lower Malampaya natural gas prices and slight peso appreciation.
5. Meanwhile, charges from Meralco’s power supply agreements inched up by P0.2118 per kWh because of the forced outage of the San Gabriel natural gas power plant during the supply month.
Meralco secured the bulk of its supply requirement, or 53 percent, from its PSAs, followed by IPPs at 35 percent and WESM at 12 percent.
Let us go over some factors that deserve to be duly understood.
1. Meralco’s generation rate for November reduced only 0.0215 per kwh (or 0.5%) from P4.2233 in October to P4.2018 in November.
2. A big part of that reduction is the P1.28 per kwh reduce in WESM price (36%) from P3.5668 in October to P2.2868 per kwh. Meralco bought 12.1% of its power supply from WESM during this period.
3. Conversely, Quezon Power’s rate (QPPL) jumped P0.9682 per kwh (18.49%) from P5.2363 per kwh in October to P6.2045 per kwh in November.
4. QPPL’s November rate of P6.2045 is 75.4% higher than Therma Luzon in Pagbilao. 63.8% higher than its sister generator San Buenaventura’s P3.8046. 51.5% higher than San Miguel Suals P4.0946 and 18.3% higher than AC Energy’s P5.2567.
5. Meralco tries to rationalize that QPPL’s 480mw power plant in “ Mauban is an older plant and has higher operating cost and fuel consumption”. Such alibi is belied by the fact that the other plants that were built in the same “power crisis period” of 1993 to 2000 and have the same basic Circulating fluidized bed technologies have much lower rates than QPPL. The 720mw Therma Luzon in Pagbilao, San Miguel’s 1,200mw Plant in Sual, and San Miguels 600mw Masinloc Plant in Zambales, The Calaca Coal power plant of DMCI Power is even older and had been the lowest generator supplier to Meralco until it mysteriously disappeared from Meralco’s supplier mix. Should the Philippine Competition Commission also look into the disappearance of competitive suppliers that help drive down prices for the consumers?
6. Similarly, the power supply contracts of these old plants were also determined by the ERC to be fair and reasonable and approved 20 years ago just like QPPL. Why have they stayed “fair and reasonable” when QPPL’S have rocketed to the stratosphere, burning through consumers’ pockets in the process.
What is even more concerning to consumers is why Meralco and QPPL and its owners EGAT of Thailand are open and blatant about these excessive charges and seemed to be very confident that the regulators will not notice or pay attention to it? And that even if the consumers complain, the ERC will not do anything? Let us hope not.
Meralco Announces 0.46% lower Rate in November helped by a WESM price drop by 36% but offset by a whopping QPPL Increase by 18.49%. What will it take to be noticed?
Who is looking after the consumers?
Matuwid na Singil sa Kuryente Consumer Alliance Inc.
david.mskorg@yahoo.com.ph
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