Good news for electric consumers. The Manila Electric Company has announced that the electric bills will go down P0.58 per kilowatt-hour (kWh) this month on lower generation and transmission charges resulting in lower electric bills in September.
Generation charge went down to P5.19 per kWh which is its lowest level in 2014 to-date. Last month, the rate was P5.63 per kWh. The reason for the decrease in generation charge is the availability and reliability of more power plants, said Jose Zaldarriaga, head of Meralco external communications.
“Less forced outages were registered by power plants during the August supply month. In contrast to July, when the Luzon Grid experienced instances of generation deficiency, no Yellow or Red Alerts were declared in August,” Meralco said in a statement.
There will also be a reduction of 44 centavos per kilowatthour in the generation charge, while the systems loss charge will also be reduced by 2 centavos per kwh. Taxes will also be eased by 8 centavos per kwh.
Thus, a household consuming 200 kWh a month will have a P116 reduction in its bill for September. Those who use up 300 kwh would be able to save as much as P173.25 in next month’s bill, Meralco said, while those consuming 400 kwh would be saving as much as P231.
More power plants online led to to lower prices in the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM).