THE Manila Electric Company (Meralco) announced on Friday a slight upward adjustment this July, as the overall rate for a typical household increased by P0.2353 per kWh, from last month’s P8.6718 to P8.9071 per kWh this month, mainly due to persistently high charges in the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market.

This is equivalent to an increase of around P47 in the total bill of a residential customer consuming 200 kWh.

The increase this month was tempered by Meralco’s continued implementation of the Distribution Rate True-Up refund, which began March 2021.

The Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) provisionally approved Meralco’s proposal to refund around P13.9 billion over a period of 24 months or until the amount is fully refunded.

This amount represents the difference between the Actual Weighted Average Tariff and the ERC-approved Interim Average Rate for distribution-related charges for the period July 2015 to November 2020.

For residential customers, the refund rate is P0.2761 per kWh and appears in customer bills as a line item called “Dist True-Up”.

Generation charge for July is at P4.8707 per kWh, a P0.2536 increase from last month’s P4.6171 per kWh.

Charges from independent power producers (IPP) also increased by P0.1929 per kWh. With reduced gas supply from Malampaya, affected plants resorted to the use of more expensive liquid fuel to continue operating and avoid more or longer brown outs.

IPP charges were also pushed up by the peso’s depreciation, as dollar-denominated charges account for 97 percent of IPP costs.

Meanwhile, cost of power from power supply agreements decreased by P0.0521 per kWh.

Transmission charge for residential customers fell by P0.1463 per kWh due to a significant decrease in ancillary service charges. Taxes and other charges rose by P0.1280 per kWh.

Collection of the universal charge-environmental charge remains suspended, as directed by the ERC.

Meralco’s distribution, supply and metering charges have remained unchanged for 72 months, after these registered reductions in July 2015.

Meralco reiterated that it does not earn from the pass-through charges, as payment for the generation charge goes to the power suppliers, while payment for the transmission charge goes to the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines. Taxes and other public policy charges like the universal charges and the feed-in-tariff allowance are remitted to the government.