THE Manila Electric Company (Meralco) said customers should expect higher bills this month as the power distributor hiked its household rate due to higher generation charges resulting from tight supply conditions.
In an advisory on Thursday, Meralco said it hiked its rate by 64.36 centavos per kilowatt-hour (kWh), bringing the overall household rate to P12.075 per kWh in June from P11.4139 per kWh in May.
The upward adjustment may translate to an increase of around P129 in the total electricity bill of a typical customer consuming 200 kWh.
Meralco attributed the rate hike to the increase in generation charge by 34.66 per kWh due to higher costs from the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM).
“The increase in the generation charge this month would have been higher but Meralco took the initiative to cushion the impact of the higher pass-through costs to our customers with the help from some of our suppliers which deferred the collection of portions of their generation costs,” said Meralco senior vice president and head of Regulatory Management Office Atty. Jose Ronald Valles.
Meralco said it, along with Quezon Power (Philippines) Ltd., San Buenaventura Power Ltd. Co. (SBPL), and South Premiere Power Corporation (SPPC), deferred the collection of around P500 million in generation costs, pulling down this month’s generation charge by 13.13 centavos per kWh.
The power distributor said the deferred collection will instead be billed on a staggered basis over the next three months, as cleared by the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC).
