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By Euan Paulo C. Añonuevo, Reporter
The electricity bills in the
Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) franchise area are expected to go down
after the cost of electricity the company sources from the Wholesale
Electricity Spot Market (WESM) posted a record low.
The Lopez-controlled power
company, the country’s largest distribution utility, announced
Thursday that its customers will experience a P0.2329 per
kilowatt-hour (kWh) reduction in the generation component of their
electricity bills for February.
Meralco added that its system
loss charges also went down for all customer classes—at P0.032 per
kWh for its residential customers and P0.016 per kWh for its 34.5-kV
customers.
Because of cutbacks in generation
and system loss charges, most of Meralco’s residential customers,
or those consuming 200 kWh or more per month, will have their cost
of electricity for the billing month of February 2008 go down by
P0.1863 per kWh.
Elpi Cuna, Meralco vice-president
for corporate communications, said the reduction in power rates
mainly came about after the power Meralco was sourcing from the spot
market in January posted an all-time low of P3.38 per kWh.
“This is the lowest monthly
WESM rate since the electricity spot market started commercial
operations in July 2006,” he added.
He added that a substantial
adjustment in the spot market bill for January further brought down
the spot market’s effective rate to only P1.94 per kWh.
While billing adjustments are
made monthly on the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market bill, the
adjustment in January at minus P1.44 per kWh, was much larger than
that in December, which decreased by P0.25 per kWh.
Because of this, from the January
level of P4.4275 per kWh, the generation charge for February will go
down to P4.1946 per kWh.
The significant reduction in the
cost of power from the spot market more than offset the P0.93
increase in the rate of state-owned power generating company
National Power Corp. (Napocor), from P3.97 per kWh in December to
P4.90 per kWh in January.
Meralco said all components of
Napocor’s rate have increased. With the start of Napocor’s dry
season time-of-use rates, its average basic rate, including power
supplied under special programs, increased by P0.29 per kWh.
There were also increases in
Napocor’s generation rate at P0.15 per kWh, and foreign exchange
costs at P0.49 per kWh from their respective levels in December.
On the other hand, the cost of
power from Meralco’s contracted independent power producers
remained stable, at an average P4.17 per kWh.
In January, Meralco sourced 9
percent of its power supply from the spot market; 35 percent from
Napocor; and 56 percent from its independent power producers.
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