Customers of Manila Electric Company (Meralco) will see a spike in their electricity bills this month, as the utility firm’s pass-through generation charge cost jumped by P0.327 per kilowatt hour (kWh) for November billing cycle.

The generation charge to be reflected in Meralco bills this month will be P4.2286 per kWh this month.

Amid the increase in that particular rate item, Meralco vice president and utility economics head Ivanna G. dela Pena offered some form of solace when she noted that “this adjustment in the generation charge will be tempered by the reduction in transmission charges and the deferred PPA (purchased power adjustment) refund ordered by the ERC, amounting to 6 and 1.7 centavos per kilowatt hour, respectively.”

These mitigating factors will then bring down the net increase in Meralco bills by P0.25 per kWh.

Dela Pena also emphasized that this month’s adjustment is still negligible compared to the peak generation charge logged in the first semester at P5.02 per kWh; and still lower than the P4.26 per kWh billed June-July billing period.

“The cooler weather at this time of the year would also temper the effect of the said generation rate adjustment on the overall bills of customers,” she added.

The Meralco executive explained that the hike in this month’s generation charge was propelled by array of factors, including the lower dispatch of the utility firm’s contracted independent power producers given the consequent slump in demand after the onslaught of typhoons in October.

What compounded the low-consumption occurrence, she said had been “the prolonged power outages in some portions of the Meralco franchise area resulting from the trouble in one of the transformers in the Dolores substation of the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP).”

The utility firm bared its procurement from the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM) was higher last month, hence, contributing to the “overall increase in the generation charge.”

Before fresh round of complaints would again turn Meralco into a ‘battering ram’, company external communications manager Joe Zaldarriaga reminded their customers that this increase came “after a series of reductions in the generation charge for the past six months.”