MANILA: The tight power supply in the Luzon grid during the yellow and red alerts in April has pushed electricity rates up in franchise areas of Manila Electric Company (Meralco).

Meralco announced Tuesday that power rates in May increased by PHP0.4621 per kilowatt hour to PHP11.4139 per kWh from PHP10.9518 per kWh in the previous month.

This means that a residential customer consuming 200 kWh a month can expect an increase of PHP92 in electricity bill for May.

Generation rate, transmission fee, and other charges went up this month.

In a statement, Meralco said overall generation charge rose PHP0.455 per kWh due to higher prices at the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM) and Power Supply Agreements (PSAs).

Electricity rate from WESM jumped PHP1.7913 per kWh because of the higher demand in the Luzon grid while some of the power plants went on unplanned shutdown.

‘There were three days with yellow alerts and five days with yellow/red alerts from normal conditions the previous supply month. In additio
n, the secondary price cap was triggered 19 percent of the time in April versus only 7 percent the previous month,’ Meralco said.

‘Similarly, charges from PSAs increased by PHP0.2871 per kWh due to lower excess energy deliveries of some PSAs,’ the distribution utility said.

The weaker peso against the US dollar also affected the increase in dollar-dominated PSA rate.

On the other hand, the electricity rate from Independent Power Producers (IPPs) tempered the higher WESM and PSA charges.

‘WESM, PSAs, and IPPs accounted for 30 percent, 36 percent, and 34 percent respectively of Meralco’s total energy requirement for this period,’ Meralco said.

Meanwhile, transmission and other charges had a net increase of PHP0.0166 per kWh.

Source: Philippines News Agency