Meralco, the Philippines’ largest power retailer, expects a lower overall electricity rate in September, on the back of a stronger peso.
“The decrease is mainly due to the stronger peso against the US dollar, which affected the costs of Meralco suppliers that are dollar-denominated,” said Joe Zaldarriaga, Meralco vice president and head of corporate communications.
He said the decrease “was able to more than offset the cost recovery of SMC Global Power for its terminated contracts, implementation of which was given a go signal by the Energy Regulatory Commission [ERC] beginning this month.”
The peso closed at 56.98 against the US dollar Tuesday, up from 58.14 on Aug. 1, 2025.
The ERC allowed SMC Global to recover P0.25 per kilowatt-hour (kWh) from consumers for a six-month period, totaling P5 billion. This covers the first phase of “change in circumstance” (CIC) claims by San Miguel Corp.’s power units.
The decision was in compliance with a Supreme Court and Court of Appeals ruling that allowed payments to South Premiere Power Corp. and San Miguel Energy Corp., which had appealed the ERC’s previous decision to deny their rate-hike request.
The Supreme Court affirmed a Court of Appeals ruling upholding SMC’s right to invoke a CIC clause in its power supply agreements with Meralco.
The ERC has yet to rule on SMC’s second CIC claim for P29 billion.
“Overall, we are optimistic that the reduction in generation charge will be able to offset increases in other bill components,” Zaldarriaga said.
“We’re set to announce the actual rate adjustment tomorrow,” he said.
Meralco’s rates increased by P0.6268 per kWh in August due to higher pass-through charges, with the overall rate for a typical household reaching P13.2703 per kWh, up from P12.6435 per kWh the previous month.
The generation charge rose by P0.3749 per kWh, mainly because of increases in charges from Independent Power Producers (IPPs) and the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM).
