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By Angelo S. Samonte Reporter
President Gloria Arroyo on Friday
said she wants the Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) to bring down its
electricity rate to P3.52 per kilowatt hour (kWh) from the current
P6 to P10 per kWh.
President
Arroyo cited the recent reduction of generation charges by the
National Power Corp. (Napocor). These charges are imposed by Napocor
on Meralco, a power distributor. Meralco sources its power from its
contracted independent power producers, Napocor and the Wholesale
Electricity Spot Market (WESM).
With the reduced generation
charges from Napocor, the President said, it is time for Meralco to
give preferential treatment to poor consumers.
Mrs. Arroyo added that Meralco
could even adopt the lower rates being imposed by electric
cooperatives in Davao in the southern Mindanao region and by 142
other electric cooperatives in the rest of the country.
The President asked the private
sector to help the government press Meralco into lowering its
electricity rate. This sector, she said, can ask Meralco to stop
charging consumers for its system losses. Such losses refer to
electricity supposedly stolen from the Lopez-owned utility.
Mrs.
Arroyo invited business organizations to attend a hearing set for
May 6 by the Energy Regulatory Commission on the high cost of
electricity in the country.
She told the business groups that
any reduction in power rates “will benefit your employees.”
The Lopez-owned Meralco last
month raised its electricity rate by P0.9753 per kWh, causing the
higher electricity billings in April for consumers in franchise
areas of the utility.
A big slice of the rate hike came
from Meralco’s higher generation charges, which went up by P0.5188
per kWh, and its distribution charges which shot up by P0.3036 per
kWh.
A plunge in the utilization of
the country’s coal plants last month resulted in a spike in the
distribution charges of Meralco, according to the Philippine
Electricity Market Corp. (PEMC).
In March, the contribution of the
coal plants to the power-generation mix at WESM, which is run by
PEMC, dropped to 21.3 percent, from 29.9 percent in February.
The share of the more expensive
natural gas in the mix soared to 52.9 percent, from 43.8 percent.
Other power plants recorded about the same level of utilization from
previous months.
The low utilization of the coal
plants came after government-owned Napocor signed about P10-billion
worth of supply contracts with eight foreign firms for its coal
needs this dry season in the country. The season begins usually in
April and could last until June.
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