ELECTRICITY bills for October will slightly go up by P0.10 per kilowatt-hour (kWh) as against a reduction of P0.58 per kWh in the previous month, the Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) confirmed on Wednesday.
For a typical household consuming 200 kWh, this month’s adjustment is equivalent to an increase of around P20.
The increase was mainly due to the P0.159-per-kWh upward adjustment in generation charge, the biggest component of a Meralco bill, from P5.19 per kWh to P5.35 per kWh.
Meralco said generation charge for the supply month of September and reflected in October bills went up because of the five-day Malampaya restriction, from September 8 to 11 and September 21 to 23, which forced the Santa Rita and San Lorenzo power plants to use more expensive liquid fuel in lieu of natural gas.
This resulted in higher generation costs from these plants. Also, the Malampaya restriction reduced dispatch of the Ilijan power plant during the September supply month. The deterioration of the peso against the dollar from 43.590 to 44.875 this month contributed further to the increase in generation charge.
The use of alternative fuel by the natural-gas plants accounted for P0.13 per kWh of the increase in the generation charge, while the higher foreign-exchange rate added another P0.08 per kWh. If not for these upward adjustments, the generation charge would have gone down by P0.05 per kWh.
Meralco sources its power requirements from power supply agreements (PSAs), independent power producers (IPPs) and the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM).
The utility firm said it sourced 53 percent, 46[percent] and 1 percent of its total power requirements for the September supply month from PSAs, IPPs and WESM, respectively.
IPPs registered a P0.44-per-kWh average increase. Meanwhile, plants under the PSAs, as a whole, went down by P0.01 per kWh. The spot market, likewise, registered a reduction of P7.45 per kWh.
Meralco said the presence of the secondary WESM price cap helped moderate WESM charges and protected customers in spite of the successive restrictions of Malampaya and the outage of some power plants.
Contributing also to the overall upward adjustment in the bills to households is the P0.007-per-kWh increase in taxes. Transmission charge, meanwhile, registered a P0.054 decrease per kWh. There was also a cumulative decrease of P0.008 per kWh in subsidies and the system-loss charge.
Meralco reiterated that it does not earn from the pass-through charges, such as the generation and transmission charges. Payment for the generation charge goes to the power suppliers, such as the plants selling to Meralco through the WESM and under the PSAs, as well as the IPPs. Payment for the transmission charge, meanwhile, goes to the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines. Of the total bill, only the distribution, supply and metering charges accrue to Meralco.
Lenie Lectura