Palace: Meralco rates may go down again in September

While it defended the power rate hike this month, Malacañang assured customers of the Manila Electric Company (Meralco) their electric bill will go down again by September. Presidential spokesman Edwin Lacierda said the rate hike this month was needed because some power plants where Meralco gets its electricity are undergoing rehabilitation. “Napaliwanag ni Sec. (Jose Rene) Almendras itong buwan baka tumaas ang kuryente dahil nire-rehabilitate ang San Jose plant. So may mas mahal ang operation ng plants…. Ayon kay Almendras hopefully next month bababa ang presyo… (Secretary Almendras said power rates may go up this month because the San Jose plant is being rehabilitated and the power coming from other sources is more expensive. But Almendras is hoping that by September, power rates will go down again once the San Jose plant is rehabilitated)," Lacierda said on government-run dzRB radio. “If the plant were not renovated, power rates would have been higher in the long run. So we are trying to keep electricity rates low in the long term," he said. Meanwhile, Lacierda said Almendras wants to review and improve on the present laws, including the Electric Power Industry Reform Act (EPIRA). While he did not elaborate, he said Almendras wants the EPIRA to be “more responsive" to the needs of the situation. “He was telling me he’d like to review the law to make it more responsive to the needs of current situation. All these are under discussion," he said. On Friday, Meralco advised its customers to expect their August electric bills to go up. Meralco said they experienced higher generation rate of P0.44 per kilowatt hour (kWh) hour in July. The generation rate increase in July will be reflected on consumers’ August bills. According to Meralco, the effect of this increase in generation rate is: those with monthly consumption of 200 kWh will pay an additional P88 in their August bill. Lifeline residential customers, or those consuming 100 kWh or less, will have lesser increase at an average of P0.22 per kWh. Meralco said July’s generation rate is the second highest for the year, the highest took place in April at P6.77 per kWh. It said that of the P3.08 per kWh increase, about P1.46 per kWh was due to higher market clearing prices, P0.85 per kWh was due to increase in line rental cost, and the remaining P0.77 was due to various adjustments pertaining to June 2010’s wholesale electricity spot market (WESM) supply. — LBG, GMANews.TV