MANILA – Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) on Wednesday said its rates will slightly go up by P0.0846 per kilowatt hour (kWh) in January.
This will bring the overall rate for a typical household to P11.3430 per kWh from P11.2584 per kWh in December. For residential customers consuming 200 kWh, the adjustment is equivalent to an increase of around P17 in their total electricity bill.
Meralco said the rate increase was primarily due to the higher generation charge, which inched up by P0.1136 to P6.6468 per kWh in January from P6.5332 per kWh last month, owing to higher cost of power from the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM), as well as from the Independent Power Producers (IPPs).
It said that WESM charges went up by P0.5611 per kWh due to higher average capacity on outage in the Luzon grid, which increased by around 418 megawatts (MW).
Charges from IPPs also increased by P0.1384 per kWh because of the higher fuel costs of First Gas Power Corp.
The higher fuel cost was the result of the usage of imported liquefied natural gas (LNG) in the testing and commissioning of its LNG terminal.
Costs from WESM and IPPs accounted for 20.5 percent and 36.5 percent, respectively, of Meralco’s total energy requirement for the period.
