MERALCO Announces Lower Rates This February

Have you felt the difference? I know I did. My Meralco bill arrived this month and it looks like there's good news because for the second month in a row, the Manila Electric Company (Meralco) announced that there is a decrease in power rates for the month of February. 

The overall rate for a typical household consuming 200kWh (much like in my home) decreased by Php 0.59 to Php 8.86 per kilowatt hour (kWh). This is at its lowest level in two years. Last month, they had it at Php 9.45 per kWh which is a significant drop in price. This means that in a household like mine, you will get a decrease on our bill of around Php 118 for the total electricity bill this month. This js because of the new Power Supply Agreements that they did last December 26th. They got the ability to choose cheaper electricity suppliers by partnering with specific ones like San Miguel Energy Corporation, South Premiere Power Corporation and AC Energy who charger less than others, hence the lower Generation Charges reflecting on your bill.

This is quite smart as it resulted in back-to-back rate decreases at P1.00 per kWh since the start of the year. This hasn't happened in the last 5 years. Add to that, some charges from the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM) (where we buy our power supply) seem to be also lower this month, that's good news!

What happens with these lower cost electricity sourced from PSAs is that you can save a lot, plus after using energy-efficient appliances and devices at home, you can save even more! The money you save can go to payment of other bills, utilities, or food on the table. 

Summer is also near, which means it will be doubly hard to generate with our Hydro plants, Meralco urges us consumers and businesses to practice energy efficiency initiatives. Even at your own home for example. Make sure to unplug appliances when not in use. Some of them still consume power even in sleep or standby mode. If you have air-conditioning at home, put it at mid-setting or around 25 degrees Celsius. That's going to be sufficient enough to keep your room cold and habitable. Consult electricians on how to use a power strip which can supply power to several appliances all at once. You can also opt to use natural light during daytime, photos and portraits look good on them anyway. Keep appliances well-maintained especially air conditioning units to ensure optimal performance, it makes your spot cool faster because the filters are dirt free, air clean too!

Anyway, check out this video to understand more about it!

As for me, I'll check more things at home and see how to improve efficiency and lower power consumption. We all live in this country, might as well do our share to save resources. Your kids would thank you for it!

Meralco Launches 1st MTECH 2015

We're in the Meralco Technology and Innovation Summit today at the Meralco grounds in Ortigas. This is a 3 day summit designed to push Meralco's goal for innovative solutions and customer service advancement in the power industry. They call it Visioneering, a combination of forming a vision and engineering innovative solutions that would in turn increase customer interaction, empower them, integrate environmentally apt and distributed resources, plus sustainable and reliable energy. This is the first MTECH forum and they were led by Meralco Chairman Manny V. Pangilinan, President and CEO Oscar Reyes, Meralco SVP Alfred Panlilio and their Chief Technology Adviser Gavin Barfield in simple ceremonies. 

Meralco's VP and CIO Marthyn Cuan says "Tech is a powerful tool to differentiate Meralco Business from the others as we continue to engage and empower our customers. It will shape a brighter future for the company and our customers."

Confirmed to speak in the conference is IBM Scaleable Solutions Architect and master inventor Kerrie Holley who will talk about his topic "Rethink Disruption". Also, they had IBM Analytics Chief Data Scientist Dr. Olav Laudy talking about big data and analytics and how to use it in utility companies. Siemens Asean Chief Technology Officer and Engineering Head Anand Gopal Menon and Sajin Rejan the Managing Director from Opower APAC on the other hand discussed smart technologies and customer based applications. All of these of which is to make Meralco 2021 a reality today.

MTECH2015 has also partnered with Cisco (hello! I know you're reading this LOL), Cotrix, Cloudera, Dell, Indra, Landis + Gyr, Microsoft, GMS, Hitatchi, Huawei, IBM, Pay Maya, Safezone, Salesforce (oh hello there too!), Samsung Business, Schneider Electric, Siemens, Toshiba and a lot more so they could showcase their products, software and services at the venue.

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"Shrek The Musical" Live In Manila!

It's one of my favorite animated films since its inception , the green, huge, not so good looking monster who's as human as anyone we know gets to fall in love, live life, and persecuted by everyone else as if he doesn't have the right to do so. The fun starts when Shrek shows how he's good, a little off putting on ogre capabilities, but he's just as smart as you and me. He's also got a funny donkey as a sidekick that doesn't do much to help or doesn't even make sense at times but you can see how he cares at times when Shrek needs it. Then when it arrives, Princess Fiona makes Shrek the happiest ogre on Earth by giving him the one thing he dreams of... And that's love!

The Broadway and West End Musical made by David Lindsay Abaire and Jeanine Tesori will make you believe in love again - but will make you laugh at life's antics as they bring this performance to the Meralco Theater this September 19 to October 12, 2014 running for 4 weeks straight keeping you still believing in it no matter how impossible things may be. There are evil villains but like the animated film from DreamWorks, we'll have to see his whole journey to love, laughter, adventure and life. You'll still hear the favorite songs "I'm a believer" plus a lot more that you might not have heard yet but made for the musical to perfectly fit the situation in Shrek's life! Moms and Dads, Kids can even learn from this so come join the fun in Meralco Theater and see international level performances as they do it in the Philippines on the dates mentioned above. Family comedy at it's best and a lot more can be seen so rush to TicketNet outlets, or call 8919999 or visit www.ticketworld.com.ph to see Shrek The Musical as soon as it opens its doors this month. The true value of friendship, honesty, love can be seen in this musical so all you gotta do is get them while it's still early!

Shrek The Musical is from Sam Mendes who's a really big fan of the animated film. I can't wait! 

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Rotating Brownout

Well looks like Meralco has been losing grip of the situation. There are places in Metro Manila now that has no power. Even the powerful TRINOMA Mall in Quezon City has some of the stores lose air conditioning and people are staying away from those areas. I am not surprised because this problem has been discussed in past administrations and we need a big supply to at least get us through the next decade. They are talking about Atomic Energy and I am quite okay with it as long as we don't enrich plutonium and make our own bombs. That would be really funny if it happened. Like if the IAEA suddenly went to our country and checked if we made the ones similar in North Korea. I wonder if that is feasible. I think Marcos in his time tried to do that. I am not surprised some of our scientists are working for NASA now. =)

The Rotating brownout is being done so we can at least have the electricity distributed throughout the metro. I hope they do this in the afternoon when most of the people are at work and not when everyone is resting at night. I would not want to see my folks suffer heat while sleeping, not even in the afternoon. They need airconditioning or maybe a measely fan to survive throughout this day. Heat stroke is very usual in our climate so I am trying to avoid that. I would not want to see any of my loved ones suffering through the same. I'll just keep busy tweeting here in the meantime. Thank the heavens I have wifi even at home. Although I would wonder if they have power outages in my area, its not being mentioned in the news so I am very lucky. =)

Typhoon Ondoy Wrath

It seems that everywhere I look now there is some kind of mishap with Typhoon Ondoy. This was reported 2 days ago as a slow and weak typhoon. Now see where that report got us? It seems that PAGASA has ever been so unreliable. Not only that, I'll let you see some pictures around my barangay later this week.

Just bear with me a little because we do not have electricity as of the moment. Yes you heard it. We do not have electricity because MERALCO turned it off by a request of a home owner... they said because there was flooding but THE HELL with them! They all have main switches in their houses why in the world should everybody else's electricity be turned off! Someone is definitely not thinking! Where are your brains if you need it MERALCO! Yes I am accusing you! I hate you! If there were only a competitor I could have gotten their services instead! You monopolized a utility but you never gave us fair rates and services! We are even one of the most expensive in rates in Asia only second to Japan. I hate Meralco...I hate Meralco... this will be my mantra for this evening... they never got me to sleep last night and I hate them a lot! (-_-)

I'll let you see the pics maybe tomorrow morning when I get back from work. I hope there is electricity already!

Electricity Rates Goin Up!

Hindi pa tapos ang pagtaas! This is not the end of it! Har har!

Aside from the delayed fare rollback for public utility vehicles, the bad news just comes rolling in. The Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) has recently approved the petition of National Power Corporation (Napocor) to raise rates for local electricity.

According to the ERC's decision, it has given due provisional authority for NAPOCOR to increase it's basic rates up to P0.47 per kilowatt hour for the whole area of Luzon, P1.15 per kilowatt hour in the Visayas and P0.71 for the Mindanao region. Because of this particular increase it would be a total of P4.36/kWh for the basic rates in Luzon, P4.03/kWh in Visayas and P2.82/kWh for Mindanao respectively. The power rate increase will be felt on the February 26 - March 25 billing period. Meralco consumers like us in Metro Manila will only have half of the increase because this region only have half of its supply with NAPOCOR. The other half are only from independent power producers, and I just wonder if they increase their rates in the same season too. That would just be bad!

Meralco Electricity Rates Go Down, Water Rates Go Up!

The Horror Continues!

Manila Electric Company rates will go down this month while Water rates will go up. There will be a 5 centavo deduction per kilowatt hour in the power rates or about 10 pesos for households that consume 200 Kwatts per month. This was explained by Meralco Chief for Utility Economics Ivanna de la Pena that due to the lower Generation Rate Adjustment Mechanism (GRAM) of lower electricity costs because of the worst winter elsewhere in the world. The rate adjustments appear to be temporary as March approaches for the Summer Season so don't rejoice yet!

Manila Water and Maynilad on the other hand will be raising prices in the last week of this month. This is because of the automatic adjustment for inflation at recovery ng foreign exchange losses and does not reflect the basic rates. Manila Water will be raising 12.2 percent consumer price index adjustment and about 1.03 percent foreign currency differential adjustment. Will this mean there will be adjustments over adjustments and adjustments? Hahaha...

Manila Water's adjustment will be P2.27 per cubic meter while P2.81 per cubic meter will be for Maynilad rates. Prices will take effect 15 days from notice... so that started this Thursday... and the horror will start on the 26th.