Meralco sees power rates to go up in June

Customers of the Manila Electric Company (Meralco) should brace for higher electricity bills this month as the power distributor expects pass-through charges to go up during the billing period.

In a statement on Tuesday, Meralco said it is expecting “a significant increase in the overall rates in June due to higher pass-through charges.”

The charges include the higher transmission charge following the partial lifting of reserve market settlement as ordered by the ERC; as well as the increase in feed-in tariff (FIT) allowance as approved by the ERC (Energy Regulatory Commission), according to the power distribution utility.

Meralco added that the tight supply conditions in the Luzon grid would affect Wholesale Electricity Spot Market charge, which in turn affects its generation charge.

“To cushion the impact of the rate increase to our customers, Meralco initiated the coordination with its suppliers to defer a portion of their generation costs,” said Meralco spokesperson and vice president for Corporate Communications Joe Zaldarriaga.

Meralco said its proposes to defer the collection of generation costs on a staggered basis for a period of three months —June to August.

The power distributor added it asked the ERC to defer the collection of a portion of the WESM charges.

With this, the ERC called on distributors in Luzon and Visayas to wait for the final billing from WESM operator Independent Electricity Market Operator of the Philippines (IEMOP) before issuing the June bills.

In its order, the regulator said waiting for the final statement from IEMOP will ensure that distributors’ billings to their consumers will reflect the accurate values corresponding to WESM purchases, taking into account administered pricing and secondary price cap implemented last month.

“Meralco will comply with this directive and will wait for IEMOP’s adjusted billing before computing the final rates for June and issuing the bills to our customers,” said Zaldarriaga.

“With this, we also advise our customers to expect a slight delay in the delivery of their bills. We would like to give the assurance that these  efforts are meant to mitigate the impact of the expected rate increase to all our customers,” said the Meralco spokesperson. — RSJ, GMA Integrated News