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MANILA
Electric Co. (Meralco) is set to offer to its customers
with a monthly consumption of 1,000 kilowatt-hours (kWh)
its time-of-use rates by November.
This
will provide large residential customers of Meralco with
effective and exact power rates based on the different
times of the day.
“We are
currently rolling out the time-of-use rates to large
residential customers with a monthly consumption of
2,000 kWh, and that they will roll out the same rates to
other large residential customers with a consumption of
at least 1,000 kWh by November,” said Robert R. Almazora,
Meralco first vice president and head for customer
retail services, in a phone interview.
Time-of-use, or TOU, rates refer to a methodology by
which a utility charges its customers for the
electricity consumed based on the cost of electricity at
the time it is used, and is an electricity-rate
structure based on the imposition of higher rates during
periods of peak demand.
Peak
periods are hours of the day where the demand for
electricity is high, but peak and off-peak periods also
vary between weekdays and weekends. The rates on these
periods of the day also vary during the wet season or
July to December and dry season or January to June.
Almazora
said Meralco is now focusing on some 43,000 large
residential customers for its TOU rate program.
He added
that Meralco customers that are eligible to avail of the
rates are now being notified through written
correspondence advising them to apply at any Meralco
branch or call the nearest Meralco branch for more
information.
Under
Meralco’s application provisionally approved by the
Energy Regulation Commission in June, the TOU rate for
peak hours is P6.4852 a kWh from Monday to Sunday from
January to June and P6.1053 kWh from July to December as
against an off-peak rate of P3.0925 a kWh.
Based on
its application, Meralco noted that the TOU rates will
be introduced to their customers in two phases and will
be implemented on a voluntary basis in different phases.
The
first phase will cover industrial and nonindustrial
customers, according to Meralco, with a monthly average
demand of at least 750 kWh, and to residential customers
with a consumption of at least 2,000 kWh.
In the
second phase, Meralco said the level will be reduced to
1,000 kWh for residential customers, and thereafter the
next or succeeding phases will be proposed depending on
the result of the implementation of first and second
phases.
Meralco
said the adoption of the time-of-use pricing scheme aims
to provide end users with the price signals on the
efficient use of generation facilities and gives
incentives for customers to shift load from peak to
off-peak periods because of the price differential.
Meralco,
on the other hand, noted that the implementation of TOU
rates will also need the acquisition and installation of
electricity meters with time-stamping capabilities or
“time-of-use programmable” meters, but these type of
meters are estimated at P8,200 per meter, including
programming cost, which is something to be procured by
Meralco or each individual who is going to buy the
meter.
The
meter-reading aspect necessitates reprogramming of the
device to capture readings at different time-of-use time
zones and that new meter-reading skills need to be
developed.
Meralco
said electric bills of those who will avail of the TOU
rates should be redesigned or reformatted to be able to
reflect the information on kilowatt-hour use by time
zones.
The
time-of-use rates will also require enhancements to the
computerized billing system to accommodate additional
processing and storage of more data. |
