Meralco says power rates to decrease in December

December 7, 2017

Meralco announced a decrease in electricity rates for December 2017, amounting to 37.85 centavos for a typical household, bringing down the overall rate from last month’s P9.6272 per kWh to P9.2487 per kWh.

The rate decrease this month amounts to a reduction of around P76  in the total bill of a typical residential customer consuming 200kWh, Meralco said in a statement on Thursday.

The lower December rate is mainly due to a P0.3035 per kWh reduction in the generation charge.

The generation charge decreased from P4.9080 per kWh in November to P4.6045 per kWh this December primarily due to  the peso’s appreciation and lower Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM) charges.

Despite a slight increase in the demand for power in Luzon in November, charges from the WESM decreased by 46.58 centavos per kWh.  Power supply situation improved from October, when the grid experienced three instances of yellow alerts. The share of WESM purchases to Meralco’s total requirement this month was 12 percent.

Charges from independent power producers  and power supply agreements  also registered decreases of 21.91 centavos per kWh and 32,44 centavos per kWh, respectively, mainly due to the strengthening of the peso against the US dollar. The peso-dollar exchange rate affects around 97 percent of  independent power producers and 60 percent of power supply agreement charges.

Independent power producers and power supply agreements each provided 44 percent of Meralco’s total requirement. DMS