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.

Last October, the Manila Electric Company announced a power rate cut which was good news to its consumers. This month however, Meralco said consumers should expect an increased electricity bills. The higher electric bill for November, according to Meralco was due to the hike in the cost powers supplied by power generation companies.

The electric company said that electric bills will be higher by 25 centavos per kilowatt-hour. Households consuming 100 kWh of electricity a month will see their bills rise by P25, while those consuming up to 200 kWh should be expecting their bills to increase by P50.

The November increase was actually 32.7 centavos per kWh, according to Ivanna dela Peña, Meralco vice president for utility economics. She said this was after the generations charge rose to P4.2286 per kWh.

The increase in generation was due to a number of factors. These include the lower volume of electricity supplied by the independent power producers (IPPs), following reduced consumption during the October supply month (September 26 to October 25).

Dela Peña said the decline was attributed to the series of typhoons that hit Manila and other parts of Luzon, which in turn, caused massive power outages. “Add to this the prolonged power outages in some portions of the Meralco franchised area resulting from the trouble in one of the transformers in the Dolores Substation of the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines,” Dela Peña noted.

However, despite the increase this month, Dela Peña said that the current generation charge is still lower than levels during previous months, which had peaked at P5.02 per kwh April. She stressed that it is in fact lower than the P4.26 per kWh generation charge in June and July 2009. This is also the first time in six months that generation charge has increased.

It was definitely good news to customers of the Manila Electric Co. as Meralco announced that they will give another power rate cut this October.

Meralco customers will get lower bills this month as the power company reduced its rate by 11.55 centavos per kWh this October. This was made possible said Meralco vice president and utility economics head Ivanna de la Peña because of the lower cost of power obtained from Meralco’s various supplier for the month of September.

This was said to be the biggest cut for the last five years. Meralco said, at present, the cumulative decrease in generation charge was already P1.12 per kWh.

Customers consuming 100 kWh monthly will be saving P4.55 this month, while those consuming 200 kWh will be saving P15.72.

Unfortunately, after the good news on the power rate cut, Meralco announced it will implement rotating brownouts within its franchise area in Metro Manila on Thursday. The brownout was due to the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) shutting down a transformer in the Dolores, Rizal substation.

NGCP is the operator of the country’s electricity superhighway. It said the power outages will last a maximum of three hours, twice a day in the affected areas. These include parts of Pasig, Cainta, Marikina, and San Juan.

According to Meralco, these brownouts would last until the replacement of the NGCP transformers have arrived.