Don’t you just loathe the fact that you pay for your electric bills monthly and you get nothing special out of it? Because we are still dependent to these infrastructures, we really don’t have any other option; unless of course we invest in solar panels for our electricity.
Good news to all people who are stressed with their electric bill, Meralco will give a refund to customers. The Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) has reported that they will be giving a refund to all their consumers.
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How much will Meralco refund?
Based on their reports and their announcement, they will be refunding a total of P1.2 billion in over-recovery and over-collection of Universal Charges (UC).
The bill that will be affected by this refund would be the March billing and this was an order from the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC).
Lawrence Fernandez, Head of Utility Economics of Meralco, said in a text message that they have received totally separate orders from the ERC on how they will give a refund to customers.
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In addition, he said that this is for the overall recovery of the P545 million and P657 million over collection in this March billing.
Continuous refund
In addition to that, they also announced that Meralco consumers will be getting a refund of P0.05 per kilowatt-hour (kWh) for three (3) months. Furthermore, a P0.14 per kWh in the UC will be given back to them this March.
Fernandez continued to explain that there were charges from the years 2012 to 2013 that were over-recoveries for others. So, they made it clear that they will give a refund to customers.
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The first is the result of a confirmation process, which includes public hearings, of pass-through charges from 2012 to 2013. For some rate components, there were under-recoveries while there were over-recoveries for others. After reconciliation by ERC, it was determined that there was a net over-recovery, which will be refunded over three months.”
Would there be an increase?
According to the utility giant, Meralco said that the rate would be increased by P0.0278 per kWh which would total to P8.8901 per kWh.
This is higher compared to the rate last month which was P.8623 per kWh. Overall, however, this is substantially lower than the rate back in March 2019 which was P10.4961.
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How can this affect consumers?
If you look and think about it, the per kWh translation is hieroglyphics to us; it would mean less and less especially if we’re not knowledgeable in electricity.
So, if we were to convert it to how we normally understand it, the rate increase that would happen would be equal to an increase of P6 in the total bill of customers who are consuming 200 kWh. This is for the residential clients; there might be a different translation and conversion on business clients.
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Now that we know about Meralco giving a refund, we can be complacent about our consumption. The over-collection of Universal Charges (UC) has something good for us, too.
What do you think about that Meralco will give a refund to customers? Can this effectively help people in terms of saving money?
