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Before the official announcement of the rate adjustments for the month of December, Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) said that the cost of electricity in its franchise could fall again due to lower demand despite several outages at the plant. Energy.
Joe Zaldarriaga, a Meralco spokesman, said in a statement that Typhoons Quinta, Rolly and Ulysses caused forced outages in transmission lines and several large plants that led to wholesale spot electricity market (WESM) prices reaching P20 per kilowatt. hour (kWh) and P22 per kWh on October 27 and 28, respectively.
Zaldarriaga said that WESM prices may not be affected by the increase in plant outages, as the Energy Regulatory Commission suspended spot market operations from November 12-13.
He said peak demand on the Luzon grid also fell to 9,886 megawatts (MW) in November from 10,344 MW in October.
“In summary, the effect of more plant outages seems to be offset by a decrease in demand, so generation costs appear on a downward trajectory. It is worth mentioning that the general decrease in the energy rate since the beginning of 2020 is still more than P1 per kilowatt hour to P1.35 per kWh decrease in the general net rate for the whole year, ”said Zaldarriaga.
Meralco’s electricity rates in November fell by P0.0395 per kWh, thanks to the availability of more energy supply compared to P8.5500 per kWh in the previous month.
