Meralco rates up 3 centavos per KWh in Oct

October 10, 2017 - 9:19 AM
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Meralco meter, bworld online
Meralco meter, file photo. BUSINESSWORLD ONLINE

MANILA, Philippines — Meralco said it will be hiking its rates by three centavos per kilowatt hour this month.

September’s household rate of P9.2491/KWh will increase slightly to P9.2836/KWh in October.

This translates to the following increase in monthly bills depending on consumption:

  • 200 KWh – P 6.91
  • 300 KWh – P10.35
  • 400 KWh – P13.80

Meralco attributed the increase to the 18-centavo increase in generation charges brought by more costly fuel prices and lower plant dispatch.

“You can see that the movement is very, very slight despite the fact that we’ve had instances of yellow alerts and unscheduled plant outages as well,” Meralco spokesman Joe Zaldarriaga noted.

Spot market prices, however, went down along with transmission charges.

And barring any major swings in global oil prices and foreign exchange rates, the firm sees only minor rate changes in the run-up to Christmas, Meralco VP and head for utility economics Lawrence Fernandez

Meralco rates have steadily climbed from the sub-nine peso level since August, when the last tranche of the P6.9-billion refund was released.

Separately, the utility firm is entering into a power supply agreement with Solar Philippines, buying solar power at P2.999/KWh from the startup’s Tarlac facility, a rate Meralco says is significantly lower than the prevailing solar feed-in tariff rates.

The deal will see Solar Philippines supplying between 75 to 85 megawatts in the first five years, and at least 85 MW for the 6th to 20th contract years.