Ahead of its official announcement this week, listed power distribution firm, Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) said power rates for January could possibly go down basing on historical averages.
“We expect the movement of January power rates to be downward, resulting in lower power rates for the month. As in previous years, during the month of January, lower PSA (power supply agreement) charges are typically brought about by a reduction in capacity fees as a result of the annual reconciliation of outage allowances done at the end of each year under the PSAs approved by the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC),” said Joe Zaldarriaga, Meralco spokesman.
In January 2019, Meralco’s charges went down by P0.3418 per kilowatt hour (kWh)
“We are hopeful a similar situation will occur once again this January 2020, as with previous years,” Zaldarriaga said.
Last month, Meralco published an invitation to bid for 1,200 megawatts (MW) worth of power from greenfield power plants.
The contract capacity has a scheduled commercial operations date of September 2024 with a required contract period of 20 years.
The Third-Party Bids and Awards Committee will conduct a pre-bid conference on January 20 while the actual bid submission and opening will take place on February 17.
Last year, Meralco secured 1,200MW and 500 MW worth of power under a similar competitive selection process.
