POWER RATE SURGE
THE Manila Electric Company (Meralco) announced yesterday an upward adjustment of P0.7226 per kWh in the April electricity rate.
Meralco said the overall rate for a typical household went up to P13.0127 per kWh this month from P12.2901 per kWh in March.
For residential customers consuming 200 kWh, the adjustment is equivalent to an increase of around P145 in their total electricity bill.
Driving this month’s overall rate was the generation charge which increased by P0.7278 per kWh, mainly owing to higher costs from the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM)
Charges from Power Supply Agreements (PSAs) increased by P0.2811 per kWh following the expiration of the 400 MW PSA with Limay Power Inc. on February 25.
Also contributing to the upward adjustment was the P0.0809 per kWh increase in the transmission charge for residential customers, due to higher ancillary service charges from the reserve market incurred by the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP).
This month’s transmission charge also includes the last of three installments of February and March 2024 reserve market transactions for Luzon that the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) directed NGCP to collect.
Other charges, including taxes, also registered a net increase of P0.1163 per kWh.
Pass-through charges for generation and transmission are paid by Meralco to the power suppliers and the grid operator, respectively; while taxes, universal charges, and Feed-in Tariff Allowance are all remitted to the government.
Meralco’s distribution charge, on the other hand, has not moved since the P0.0360 per kWh reduction for a typical residential customer beginning August 2022.
Helping mitigate the overall increase was the implementation of the distribution rate true-up adjustment, equivalent to P0.2024 per kWh for residential customers, beginning this April billing period.
The said adjustment is pursuant to the order of the ERC dated 5 March 2025, provisionally approving the refund amount of P19.9 billion. This covers the difference between Meralco’s Actual Weighted Average Tariff (AWAT) and the latest approved distribution rate for the period July 2022 to December 2024. This refund shall be for 36 months or until such time that the amount is fully refunded.
