THE Manila Electric Company (Meralco) announced on Friday that P65 will be added to the total bill of a residential customer consuming 200 kilowatt per hour (kWh).

Meralco said the overall rate for a typical household went up by P0.3256 per kWh to P9.4630 per kWh, from last month’s P9.1374, due to higher generation charge.

The November generation charge went up by P0.2911 per kWh to P5.3346 per kWh from P5.0435 per kWh the previous month as a result of the Malampaya natural gas facility shutdown.

The shutdown resulted in higher costs of power from the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM) and Independent Power Producers (IPPs).

The Malampaya facility maintenance shutdown from October 2 to 25 resulted in lesser available supply in the WESM.

The tight supply condition in the Luzon Grid led to sustained high prices in the WESM and triggered the secondary price cap on September 30 and on October 1, 21 and 22, or 8.39 percent of the October supply month.

The Luzon grid was also put on yellow alert on October 20 due to forced outages of several power plants. As a result, WESM charges went up by P1.7073 per kWh.

Charges from IPPs also increased by P0.8186 per kWh. To ensure continuous power supply and to avoid rotating power interruptions, First Gas-Sta. Rita and San Lorenzo plants shifted to more expensive alternative fuel during the 24-day Malampaya shutdown.

Meralco’s continued implementation of the Distribution Rate True-Up refund which began in March 2021 also helped temper the overall increase. The refund rate for residential customers is at P0.2761 per kWh and appears in customer bills as a line item called “Dist True-Up.”

It can be recalled that 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 represented 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.

Meralco reiterated that it does not earn from the pass-through charges from generation and transmission, as payments go to the power suppliers and the system operator, respectively, while taxes, universal charges and the Feed-in Tariff Allowance (FIT-All) are remitted to the government.

Distribution, supply and metering charges, which are the only costs that go to Meralco, have remained unchanged for 76 months, after registering a reduction back in July 2015.