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By Euan Paulo C. Añonuevo, Reporter
The rates of Manila Electric Company (Meralco)
are likely to go up again in May, when electricity use is projected
to peak.
Meralco hiked rates earlier this month, because
of strong demand amid intermittent power operations and other
issues.
Data from the National Transmission Corp. (TransCo)
showed that demand for electricity in the Luzon grid traditionally
peaks in May, when the system demand could peak as high as 6,466
megawatts as recorded on May 10, 2006.
The 2006 figure was breached on April 16 when
demand shot up to 6,558 megawatts.
Demand for electricity in the country
traditionally shoots up in the summer months, when cooling
appliances are turned on more often because of the hot weather.
Coupled with high coal and oil prices in the world market, this
bodes higher electricity prices.
This month alone, Meralco’s rates rose by
P0.6717 per kilowatt-hour, which redounds to an 8.95-percent
increase, or an additional P149 for consumers using 200 kilowatts of
electricity per month.
Meralco sourced less than a tenth of the power
it distributes to its customers from the Wholesale Electricity Spot
Market (WESM) last month. Industry leaders said it bought power when
there were prevailing high prices in the spot market, and this was
mainly responsible for the mark-up in its electricity rates this
month.
The spot market is a venue where
power-generating companies can offer a portion of their capacity to
bulk power users, such as distribution utilities like Meralco, which
serves Metro Manila and adjacent provinces.
Lasse Holopainen, president of the Philippine
Electricity Spot Market (PEMC) that runs the spot market, added that
the intermittent outages of a number of power plants in March,
especially coal-fired ones, were to blame for the high spot market
prices.
There is a need to privatize government-owned
power plants to make sure they are efficiently run, he said. “We
have always had problems with the plants. The sooner we get them
out, the better.”
Among the power plants that went offline several
times last month were the Masinloc, Calaca, Sual and Pagbilao. All
are coal plants that provide cheap round-the-clock power supply.
Meralco was also buying “expensive
electricity” at the spot market when demand is high, Holopainen
added.
“If you look at it, WESM prices are actually
lower than Meralco’s purchase price,” he said.
Spot market final prices from February 26 to
March 25 showed an average market price or Effective Settlement
Price of P6.72 per kilowatt-hour, higher than the previous month’s
price of P5.73 per kilowatt-hour.
Meralco spot purchases of electricity averaged
P8.94 per kilowatt-hour, significantly higher than the spot-market
average for this month.
Besides these, Meralco won a court case in
January that allowed it to recover losses.
The firm was also allowed, starting February, to
increase its rates in line with the performance-based rate setting
approved by the Energy Regulatory Commission last year.
The Lopez-controlled distribution utility’s
rates are set to go up by P0.08 for every kilowatt-hour to P1.167
kilowatt-hour starting February from the allowed adjustments.
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