By Sheldeen Joy Talavera, Reporter

TYPICAL households in areas served by Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) will have to tighten their belts this month, as the power distributor has announced an increase in electricity rates.

The overall rate will climb by P0.1048 per kilowatt-hour (kWh) to P11.9617 per kWh in December from P11.8569 in November, Meralco said in a statement on Tuesday.

Households consuming 200 kWh will see their monthly electricity bill go up by P21. Those consuming 300 kWh, 400 kWh, and 500 kWh will have to pay an additional P31, P42, P52, respectively.

“This month’s increase was largely due to higher generation charge, which goes to our power suppliers,” said Joe R. Zaldarriaga, Meralco’s vice-president and head of corporate communications.

Generation charge rose by P0.1839 per kWh brought by the increased costs from the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM) and power supply agreements (PSAs).

WESM charges climbed by P0.2531 per kWh due to the tighter supply conditions in the Luzon grid as average capacity on outage increased by around 396 megawatts.

Charges from PSAs went up by P0.1050 per kWh due to weakening of the peso, which affected 51% of the costs, and lower average PSA dispatch.

The peso closed at P58.62 a dollar on Nov. 29, weakening by P0.52 from its P58.10 finish on Oct. 31.

Despite the impact of peso depreciation, which affected around 98% of the costs of independent power producers (IPPs), charges declined by P0.0410 per kWh as mitigated by higher IPP dispatch.

WESM, PSAs, and IPPs accounted for 31.4%, 40.2%, and 28.3%, respectively, of the company’s total energy requirement for the period.

On other components, transmission charge dropped by P0.0940 per kWh due to lower ancillary service charges from the reserve market, the avenue to procure power reserves from the WESM.

Taxes and other charges, on the other hand, increased by P0.0149 per kWh.

“Pass-through charges for generation and transmission are paid to the power suppliers and the grid operator, respectively, while taxes, universal charges, and Feed-in Tariff Allowance (FIT-All) are all remitted to the government,” the company said.

Meralco’s distribution charge has remained unchanged at P0.0360 per kWh since August 2022.

RECOVERY FOR RESERVE MARKET SUPPLIERSAt a briefing, Mr. Zaldarriaga said that the company will wait for the order from the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) to implement the collection of the remaining amount to be recovered by reserve market suppliers.

“Once we get the order, we will include that in our power bills. Whatever the rates will be, it’s going to be a pass-through charge, and the costs will go to the grid operator, which in turn will be paid to the generators,” he said.

In a statement last week, the ERC announced that it had allowed the collection of the remaining P3.05 billion to be recovered by power generators that supplied the power reserve market in February and March.

The collection of the said amount will be collected starting in the billing period of January next year over a staggered period.

“Hopefully, kahit mayroong additional increase in transmission…bumaba naman ’yung generation charge, sana ma-mitigate ’yung impact (Hopefully, even with the additional increase in transmission, the generation charge will go down, and the impact will be mitigated),” Mr. Zaldarriaga said.

Meralco’s controlling stakeholder, Beacon Electric Asset Holdings, Inc., is partly owned by PLDT Inc. Hastings Holdings, Inc., a unit of PLDT Beneficial Trust Fund subsidiary MediaQuest Holdings, Inc., has an interest in BusinessWorld through the Philippine Star Group, which it controls.