Manila Electric Company (Meralco) customers will likely see higher rates this month after the charges of the power suppliers of the utility company that had been temporarily stopped from collection in the last billing cycle.
As of July, Meralco said an extra P0.77 per kilowatt hour (kWh) would be added automatically to the bills.
Since the delayed charges will be passed on for three months, the extra P0.77 per kWh will stay on the bills until September of this year.
Meralco users, in particular, got a big discount of P1.9623 per kWh on their June bills in a delayed burden for consumers as they would still have to deal with the extra cost in three months.
The original increase of P0.6436 per kWh in the June bills was later reversed because the amount of money that the generation companies (GenCos) charged was passed on in stages.
Meralco likewise mentioned that they are still waiting for invoices from all their suppliers. Hence, the final calculation for this month’s overall tariff has not yet been determined.
Meanwhile, the operator of the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM) reported a decline in spot settlement prices, with the average price for the last supply month dropping to P6.15 per kWh from the previous billing cycle’s P8.22 per kWh.
For the Luzon grid, spot prices significantly decreased by P2.31 per kWh, dropping from P8.28 per kWh to P5.97 per kWh.
In the Visayas, there was a slight decline in spot prices to P8.56 per kWh, compared to the previous month’s P8.81 per kWh. Meanwhile, Mindanao saw a substantial drop in spot prices, falling to P4.61 per kWh from P7.26 per kWh. (TCSP)
