What Are Members Paying For Electric Where They Are?

[UZI]

I live in Manila and just got our electric bill from Meralco a couple days back. The rates have gone up since last month. We saw a per unit increase of just under 18%.Last month we used 149 kw/h and total bill of 1502.65 comes out to 10.08 pesos per kwh.This month we used 190 kwh and total bill of 2254.45 comes out to 11.86 pesos per kwh.The rates go up as you use more, but I don't know how much of our rate increase was due to incrased use and how much was from higher rates in general. Either way, our rate comes out to $0.26 per kwh. That's about double what I paid in the US as of 3 years ago. Don't know what the rates are there now though.

These numbers include all the fees and other charges in addition to the generation charge. The generation charge fluctuates every month based on the cost of electricity from Meralco suppliers. About 30% of Meralco's electricity comes from the govt. electrical plants and the rest comes from privately owned plants. Meralco has contracts in place for a set price for much of their supply. However, in peak usage seasons, their contracted supply is not enough and they must purchase electricity on the spot market which costs much more. Contracted supply is only about 80% of actual demand as of now. The other 20% is purchased as needed at much higher prices. This is why your bill increases dramatically the more your usage goes up. They could do it cheaper by paying for more supply in their long-term contracts, but then Meralco and their suppliers would miss out on the opportunity to screw the consumer, and you know that's not going to happen.Mercalco also has a policy of deferring price increases. The actual price increase in March was about 1.5 pesos per kwh but roughly half of that was deferred and will be phased in over the next several months. I don't have my bill in front of me, but there is a charge on there for deferred increases. They do it this way to avoid huge increases for the consumer, but the effect is that rather than your bill going up a lot all at once and moving with the prices in the spot market, it gradually increases every month no matter what the prices on the spot energy market are.

Great answer :th_exactly:

[Gold Heart]

Since Manabouttown asked about food bills at the supermarket and since I cannot answer that because we go out to eat quite a few times a week, so our supermarket bill would not be a true account of what an expat spends, but I was wondering if electric rates vary a lot from place to place in the Philippines or in other countries? I checked our bill and found that electric in Cebu City and supplied by VECO costs us p8.4143 per kwh which for us adds up to about p7500 a month with the A/C running all the time and set on 25 or 26 depending on the outside temps.Anyone else in the Philippines or even in other countries that can tell us about what you are paying per kwh where you are? I believe p8.4143 works out to be around 18 cents US per kwh and I just checked two of my old Florida bills online and it cost between 11 and 13 cents per kwk. My average bills in the US are much lower than they are here in Cebu and our home there has more square feet and many more windows than our condo here so Cebu, so Cebu is much more expensive.

My bills average 9,200 Pesos / month. We have air conditioners in 4 bedrooms but only use AC in one and only at night. We have a pool and the pool pump ( I put on a timer) runs 1 hour daily, We have a whole house electric hot water heater which I also put on a timer and it runs 5 hours daily (5AM - 10 AM). We have a good number of fans and ceiling fans which we use regularly.This average 8.4 Pesos / KWH and we use 9,200 / month. VECO provides an annual graph and I find our usage is almost 1/2 less than the previous tenants. The cost of electricity was a surprise and is my single largest expense. I could reduce the time of the hot water heater use and get more modern ACs as the ones here appear to be at least 10 years old if not more. Since we are renting, I can't make other major energy investment upgrades.

[Mr Lee]

Since Manabouttown asked about food bills at the supermarket and since I cannot answer that because we go out to eat quite a few times a week, so our supermarket bill would not be a true account of what an expat spends, but I was wondering if electric rates vary a lot from place to place in the Philippines or in other countries? I checked our bill and found that electric in Cebu City and supplied by VECO costs us p8.4143 per kwh which for us adds up to about p7500 a month with the A/C running all the time and set on 25 or 26 depending on the outside temps.Anyone else in the Philippines or even in other countries that can tell us about what you are paying per kwh where you are? I believe p8.4143 works out to be around 18 cents US per kwh and I just checked two of my old Florida bills online and it cost between 11 and 13 cents per kwk. My average bills in the US are much lower than they are here in Cebu and our home there has more square feet and many more windows than our condo here so Cebu, so Cebu is much more expensive.

My bills average 9,200 Pesos / month. We have air conditioners in 4 bedrooms but only use AC in one and only at night. We have a pool and the pool pump ( I put on a timer) runs 1 hour daily, We have a whole house electric hot water heater which I also put on a timer and it runs 5 hours daily (5AM - 10 AM). We have a good number of fans and ceiling fans which we use regularly.This average 8.4 Pesos / KWH and we use 9,200 / month. VECO provides an annual graph and I find our usage is almost 1/2 less than the previous tenants. The cost of electricity was a surprise and is my single largest expense. I could reduce the time of the hot water heater use and get more modern ACs as the ones here appear to be at least 10 years old if not more. Since we are renting, I can't make other major energy investment upgrades.

Possibly having the A/C cleaned might help. We have split units and I had the company come out and clean the one we use the most. It cost p600 to clean and the dirt that came out of the unit which is on our patio and pretty high up off the street was amazing to me. I clean the inside filters monthly but the outside one was a new unit and has no more than 12 months of use on it. Now that it was cleaned, I can keep the temp one degree higher and get the same comfort, so all the pollution must really take a toll on the A/C units here and clean ones cool much better and for less costs.

[Gold Heart]

Possibly having the A/C cleaned might help. We have split units and I had the company come out and clean the one we use the most. It cost p600 to clean and the dirt that came out of the unit which is on our patio and pretty high up off the street was amazing to me. I clean the inside filters monthly but the outside one was a new unit and has no more than 12 months of use on it. Now that it was cleaned, I can keep the temp one degree higher and get the same comfort, so all the pollution must really take a toll on the A/C units here and clean ones cool much better and for less costs.

Good suggestion. How often are they supposed to be cleaned? I had that done when we first moved in thinking that might help it work better and not knowing the last time it was done.I think honestly this one has seen its best years. It is loud an very inefficient. If we extend our lease and the landlord is unwilling to make the change, I may do it myself. With the VECO Rates discussed here, I might be able to calculate a Return on Investment and how many months before I break even. Of course I could put the old one back in when I leave.

[Mr Lee]

Possibly having the A/C cleaned might help. We have split units and I had the company come out and clean the one we use the most. It cost p600 to clean and the dirt that came out of the unit which is on our patio and pretty high up off the street was amazing to me. I clean the inside filters monthly but the outside one was a new unit and has no more than 12 months of use on it. Now that it was cleaned, I can keep the temp one degree higher and get the same comfort, so all the pollution must really take a toll on the A/C units here and clean ones cool much better and for less costs.

Good suggestion. How often are they supposed to be cleaned? I had that done when we first moved in thinking that might help it work better and not knowing the last time it was done.I think honestly this one has seen its best years. It is loud an very inefficient. If we extend our lease and the landlord is unwilling to make the change, I may do it myself. With the VECO Rates discussed here, I might be able to calculate a Return on Investment and how many months before I break even. Of course I could put the old one back in when I leave.

I guess it will depend on how you use it. We use ours pretty much 24/7, so once a year would be needed IMO and with inside filters cleaned every month. I guess if we were closer to the road then it might need to be cleaned even more. The problem here is the pollution clogs up the outside coils pretty quickly and that causes the unit to need to run harder to get the same cold. I guess one way would be to clean it and see how long it takes to bring the room down to the temp you want it to be before the compressor shuts off on an average day, and then time it again each month and see if the time is around the same. You can buy a new unit and put it in and then pull it out as you said and replace it with the old unit and put the one you own in storage for your next place.One thing I found here is to only rent the space under air that you actually need or the bills can be very high. My wife and I now close the unit we sleep in with an accordion door and the other unit still stays cool enough with the fan we installed between the walls to the other unit, as well as the air that leaks under the accordion door, and I am now waiting to see how much that cuts our bills and I can report back when we get the bill later this month. Sometimes I wish we just lived in one of the two units and left the other door and window open because other than company and the comfort to spread out, we could have been happy in just one of the two units.Added, the one thing I see a lot of here is that people do not caulk around units and that alone will cause the units to run much longer because they are pulling in ourside air and that will make them get dirty faster too.

[Art2ro]

Holy cow! I don't really care and don't know how much per kilo watt hrs I'm paying, but my last month's Meralco bill was P8,300 using our old split type A/C unit that's on 24/7, 5 days a week!!! We have two A/C units now in our master bedroom, a new Hatachi brand 1 HP wall unit I installed myself 6 months ago, because my 8 yr old UNIAIR brand 1 HP in the bedroom and 2 HR unit in the downstairs living room(hardly ever use) multi-split type A/C was acting up, but was recently overhauled. I've recently switched back to using our Hatachi brand 1 HP A/C unit in our bedroom and will see next month what my bill will be. Because you see, my outdoor compressor unit for our UNIAIR brand multi-split type A/C unit has a larger motor and fan with 2 compressors which we mainly just use the 1 HR for our bedroom, because it's much more quieter then our Hatachi brand. Our Hatachi brand has a smaller motor and fan with just one compressor. So maybe our Hatachi brand wall mounted A/C unit will consume less wattage! We'll see next month!:)

Edited April 28, 2010 by Pinoy Art

[love2winalot]

Hiya: Last month my inlaws used p3757 was the electric bill. After 30 days with me here it went up to p5152. That is an increase of around $35, and i can live with that. Our house is 3120 sq st, and in America, it would cost a hell of a lot more in electricity. We have Fans in each room, and a split AC in my bedroom/office, that i usually only run a few hours at night. This is totally acceptable to me. In fact, i will leave the AC on tonight an extra hour to celibrate......................

[UZI]

Hiya: Last month my inlaws used p3757 was the electric bill. After 30 days with me here it went up to p5152. That is an increase of around $35, and i can live with that. Our house is 3120 sq st, and in America, it would cost a hell of a lot more in electricity. We have Fans in each room, and a split AC in my bedroom/office, that i usually only run a few hours at night. This is totally acceptable to me. In fact, i will leave the AC on tonight an extra hour to celibrate......................

We have a 42" DLP TV with my PC connected to it on 24/7 & surf or watch movies & TV programs direct off it. As well as the usual fans running, Fridge/Freezer etc we have 2 x 1.5HP split Aircons. One, a Panasonic, in the guest bedroom used only when friends or family visit and a Carrier brand in the master bedroom. The carrier runs in the afternoon while my wife watches her soaps and all night at this time of the year. Wall type (window) aircons are too noisy & too inefficient for me but they do cost less to buy. I preferred to pay a bit more up front to save in the long run on the monthly bills which av through the year at around P3,000 a month.Largest electric bill we have had to date from Meralco is P4,800. Uzi. Edited May 13, 2010 by UZI