Manila Electric Company (Meralco) is raising transmission charges and Feed-In Tariff Allowance (FIT-All) by P0.1520/kilowatt-hour (kWh) for the November 2025 billing.
Electricity rate for this month will be at P13.4702/kWh from P13.3182/kWh last October.
FIT-All is a charge set by the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) and is charged to all on-grid customers and remitted to the National Transmission Corporation (Transco) for the power generated from renewable energy power plants.
For households consuming 200 kWh/month, the rate adjustment will add around P30 in their bills; those consuming 300 kWh/month will have P46 higher bills, and even higher for larger customers, Joe Zaldarriaga, Meralco vice president and head of corporate communications, said in a briefing Monday.
Zaldarriaga, however, noted that the generation charge for the month declined by P0.1008/kWh to P7.9000 from P8.0008/kWh in the previous months because of charges from Power Supply Agreements (PSAs) and Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM).
He said the rate of PSAs went down by P0.2985 because of lower fuel cost, which countered the effects of a weaker Philippine peso against the US dollar, and WESM prices slipped by P0.6273/kWh amid tightening supply.
Charges from Independent Power Producers rose by P0.2481/kWh because of peso’s depreciation, which affected IPP rates because they pay in dollars for their costs.
These three factors – the PSAs, WESM, and IPPs – account for 77 percent, 3 percent, and 20 percent of Meralco’s total power sources for the November period.
Holiday season demand
While demand is widely expected to rise during the Christmas holidays, Meralco vice president and head of utility economics Larry Fernandez said it is during the summer when demand peaks since the warm temperature makes more people use their air conditioning units longer.
“While lighting load may increase because of Christmas lights that we put up during the holidays dahil mas lumalamig ang temperature, actually bumababa ang (but because temperature goes downs so is) demand in the Luzon grid. And with lower demand we usually expect downward pressure on spot market prices,” he added.
MERALCO PHOTO