MANILA, Philippines – Customers of the Manila Electric Company (Meralco) will get significant relief on their electricity bills in June, as the company took back its previous rate hike announcement and will instead impose a significant price reduction.

Meralco said customers will see a P1.9623 per kilowatt hour (kWh) decrease in June instead of the hike of P0.6436 per kWh announced last June 13.

This brings the overall rate to P9.4516 per kWh from May’s P11.4139 per kWh. 

For residential customers consuming 200 kWh, the adjustment is equivalent to a decrease of as much as P392 in the total electricity bill.

The decrease comes as the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) ordered all distribution utilities and electric cooperatives to stagger the collection of charges covering purchases in the Wholesale Spot Electricity Market (WESM) last May into four monthly installments starting this June until September.

“We ask for the understanding of our customers over the delayed bills as we implement the newly issued order of the ERC. Rest assured that Meralco will implement adjusted due dates to give our customers enough time to pay their bills,” Meralco head of corporate communications Joe Zaldarriaga said.

However, customers should expect higher generation charges in the succeeding months, as Meralco will collect the deferred amounts on a staggered basis.

As earlier announced, Meralco, Quezon Power (Philippines) Ltd., San Buenaventura Power Ltd. Co., and South Premiere Power Corporation, deferred P500 million in generation costs to cushion the impact of higher pass-through charges to Meralco’s customers. 

“With these already deferred costs, and the recent order of the ERC to also stagger the collection of WESM charges, around P0.77 per kWh will be added every month to the generation charge in the July to September bills,” Zaldarriaga said. – Rappler.com