Metro Manila, Philippines — The Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) will charge more this month due to higher power generation cost, the second successive upward adjustment.
Customers will pay ₱0.1048 more per kilowatt-hour (kWh) to bring the overall rate to ₱11.9617 per kWh, the company said on Tuesday, Dec. 10.
The November rate was slightly lower at ₱11.8569.
The rate hike would mean an increase of ₱21 in the total bill of those consuming 200 kWh, ₱31 for 300 kWh, ₱42 for 400 kWh, and ₱52 for 500 kWh.
Meralco cited higher generation costs from the power trading platform Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM) and power supply agreements (PSAs).
“WESM charges went up by ₱0.2531 per kWh with the tighter supply conditions in the Luzon grid as average capacity on outage increased by around 396 MW,” the power distributor said.
“Charges from PSAs increased by ₱0.1050 per kWh due to the Peso depreciation, which affected around 51% of PSA costs, and lower average PSA dispatch,” it added.
Meanwhile, independent power producers (IPPs) cushioned the high generation charge. Meralco said the weakened peso affected around 98% of IPP costs.
For the December rate, transmission charge had a cut of ₱0.0940 per kWh while taxes and other charges inched up by ₱0.0149 per kWh.
