Meralco hikes rates anew
The Manila Electric Company (Meralco) will be implementing around round of power rate increase this month. Meralco hikes rates by P0.56 a kilowatt, and the company said the power rate increase was due to the higher cost of power it buys from independent producers and the electricity spot market.
Meralco first vice president Ivana de la Peña even warned that consumers should prepare for higher rates this year. He said they do not see a repeat of the conditions that brought about the low power rates last year. He added that all signals, actually point to the opposite direction.
The increase, the company said, should really have been P1 a kilowatt hour. It said that the amount was just tempered by the suspension of the increase in its distribution rate, and the completion of its collection of money it had been allowed to recover from consumers, or a total of P0.44 per kilowatt hour.
Unlike last year, when rain was abundant, allowing the cheaper-power-producing hydroelectric plants to operate longer and the price of electricity to go down, El Niño would bring water in the dams to critical levels this year and cause temperatures to rise. Thus pushing up demand while disabling the cheaper-power-producing hydroelectric plants.
February 7, 2010
Tags: Consumers, El Niño, electric bill, electricity, Meralco, Philippines, power rates increase, utilities Posted in: Announcement, Consumers, Customer Service, Philippines, Poverty, Pricing, Products, economy, money
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