MORE Power rate up P1.02/kWh in May

By Rjay Zuriaga Castor

MORE Electric and Power Corp. (MORE Power), the electric distribution utility (DU) of Iloilo City, announced a P1.02 per kilowatt-hour (kWh) increase in electricity bills for May.

The effective residential electricity rate, reflected on bills from May 18, 2024, to June 12, 2024, is P11.3263/kWh, the company said on Saturday, May 18.

The residential rates of MORE Power in April were P10.3062 per kWh.

MORE Power explained that the increase is primarily due to higher charges in generation, system loss, and taxes.

In the generation charge, it pointed out an increase in the average nodal prices of the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market, which rose from P8.67/kWh to P11.85/kWh.

This increase in the generation charge also led to higher taxes and system loss rates, although the 12-month average system loss slightly decreased from 5.50 percent to 5.44 percent compared to the previous month.

MORE Power observed a reduction in the transmission charges, citing the transmission cost spread over higher energy consumption.

The DU further noted that the changes in power prices in the spot market come amidst the thin supply situation highlighted by the “red” and “yellow” alerts declared by the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) in Luzon and Visayas over the last two months.

NGCP has raised at least 20 yellow alert statuses in the Visayas grid since April due to forced outages at power plants and reduced capacity.

A yellow alert occurs when the operating margin is insufficient to meet the transmission grid’s contingency requirement.

Neil Parcon, Head of the Corporate Planning & Regulatory Affairs Department of MORE Power, previously told the Daily Guardian that the increase would not be significant.

He cited MORE Power “contracting a large amount of its supply from stable rates; around 75 percent of our supply is coming from bilateral contracts that are not affected by the increase.”

Aside from the power purchased in the spot market, power suppliers of MORE Power include the Sem Calaca Power Corporation, KEPCO SPC Power Corporation, Energy Development Corporation, and its Net Metering Export Energy.