Meralco expects lower electric rates next year

Electric bills next January will reflect a lower generation charge for customers of power distributor Manila Electric Co. (Meralco), the company said Monday. Consumers could enjoy lower electric bills starting next month, Meralco utility economics head Ivanna dela Peña said in a statement. The generation charge — what Meralco pays its energy suppliers — accounts for 60 percent on average of a customer's monthly bills. Dela Peña said the drop in electricity rates next month may well signal the start of a low power rate regime. Meralco may have recovered already its “underrecovered" collections, she said. "There was a year that we underrecovered P5.5 billion. Then there were some overrecoveries," Dela Peña pointed out. "The P0.19-per-kilowatt-hour amortization of the P5.5-billion [underrecovered collections] was completed this month," she said. Meralco lowered its generation charge by P0.32 centavos per kilowatt-hour (kWh) in November, bringing down the December rate to P4.97 per kWh. The power distributor attributed the drop in electric bills to lower prices of electricity in the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM). WESM prices dropped to P6.35 per kWh in November from P11.34 per kWh in October. This helped offset higher prices from other suppliers, Meralco said. The National Power Corp., for example, increased its rate to P5.29 per kWh in November from P4.85 per kWh in October. — JE/VS, GMANews.TV