The Regional Secondary Price Cap (RSPC) imposed by the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) helped lower electricity rates in the franchise area of More Electric and Power Corp. (MORE Power), the distribution utility said Wednesday.

During a press briefing, MORE Power chief operating officer Ronald Torres said the cap applies to a portion of the utility’s generation charge sourced from the spot market, and is retroactive to August.

Under the ERC order, a cumulative spot market price exceeding PHP12.413 per kilowatt-hour (kWh) is capped at PHP7.423 per kWh. In the Visayas, the threshold reached PHP18.59 per kWh, Torres said.

MORE Power gets 27 percent of its power supply from the spot market, 72 percent from bilateral suppliers, and 0.6 percent from net-metering exports.

With the price cap in effect, the combined generation charge reflected in September bills is PHP7.57 per kWh, accounting for 52 percent of the total electricity bill.

Without the RSPC, the generation charge could have reached PHP9.33 per kWh, which would have pushed the overall residential rate to PHP16.56 per kWh, Torres said.

Instead, the September residential rate was PHP14.42 per kWh, slightly lower than PHP14.45 per kWh in August. The commercial rate also declined to PHP13.55 per kWh from PHP13.58 per kWh.

Torres said the price cap provides a mitigation measure amid higher spot market prices and the use of manual load dropping (MLD).

“The fact that ERC now is sensitive to this pricing … as long as we are experiencing this MLD, spike in spot market price, that mitigation strategy will be true,” he said.

MORE Power serves about 100,000 accounts, including residential and commercial customers, in Iloilo City. (PNA)