MANILA - Consumers will need to pay slightly more for electricity this month, Meralco announced on Friday citing higher charges from the country's power grid operator. 

Meralco said that while the generation charge is down by P0.35/kwh, there was a big spike in the cost of transmission from the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines.

"Driving this month’s overall rate increase is the P0.3976 per kWh increase in the transmission charge for residential customers due to higher ancillary service charges, which more than tripled this month and now account for around 52 percent of total transmission costs," Meralco said in a statement.

"Our earlier projection of a lower generation charge would have resulted to lower overall rates. However, the steep upward adjustment in the transmission charge effectively wiped out the reduction in generation charges causing a slight uptick in overall rates,” said Meralco Vice President and Head of Corporate Communications Joe Zaldarriaga.

The overall rate will increase by P0.022/kwh pushing the March rate to P11.9397/kwh from February P11.9168/kwh.

The impact on consumers is as follows:

       200kwh        P4

       300kwh        P6

       400kwh        P8

       500kwh       P10

Meralco meanwhile advised customers to embrace energy efficiency as demand rises around 10 percent during the summer months.

The power distributor said consumers can better manage their electricity consumption by using Meralco's Appliance Calculator available in the Meralco Mobile App.

"The AppCal provides information on the power consumption of various gadgets and major household appliances," the company said.

It also reminded households to be more vigilant on electrical safety amid Fire Prevention Month. 

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