Higher Meralco charges in January bill

MANILA, Philippines — Customers of Manila Electric Company (Meralco) will see an increase in their power bills as they enter the new year.

After back-to-back reductions in 2020, Meralco announced on Friday that overall rates increased by P0.2744 per kilowatt-hour (kWh) this January to P8.7497 from December 2020’s P8.4753.

“This is equivalent to an increase of around P55 in the total bill of residential customers consuming 200 kWh,” Meralco said in a statement.

Meralco attributed the rate hike to a higher generation charge which now costs P4.4574 per kWh, or P0.3058 higher than December’s generation charge of P4.1516 per kWh.

Power demand in Luzon decreased in December because of cooler temperatures and more non-working holidays compared to November.

Meralco said the lower demand led the Power Supply Agreements and Independent Power Producers rates to increase by P0.2723 and P0.2428 per kWh, respectively.

“Lower demand led to fixed costs from power suppliers being spread over lower energy volume, resulting in higher effective generation rates to consumers,” the company said.

Meanwhile, Wholesale Electricity Spot Market charges decreased by P0.6135 per kWh while the transmission charge for households decreased by P0.0236 per kWh due to refunds of excess collections.

/MUF