Power retailer Manila Electric Co. expects a flat growth in electricity sales volume for the full year 2025 as sales continued to be sluggish in the first nine months.
“For the full year, I think we’re looking at between 0.5 percent negative to 0.8 percent. So technically, it’s still flattish,” Meralco senior vice president and chief revenue officer Ferdinand Geluz said.
“While we energize a lot of customers, so additional 194,000 in net count. We’re at 8.18 million now compared to last year. So that’s a differential of 194,000. These newly energized customers have to be added around 750 gigawatt-hours, if I’m not mistaken,” Geluz said.
“But the thing is, we had some sort of what we call organic contraction. Technically, because the extreme temperature last year compared to this year, we lost around 950, around 910-something gigawatt-hours. So net on net, we’re minus 160 gigawatt-hours,” he said.
Meralco consolidated energy sales was flattish at 40,719 GWh for the first nine months from 40,872 GWh a year ago.
Meralco, which brought in the bulk of the volumes, had a marginal 0.4 percent decrease due to an extended period of inclement weather that affected demand in the residential and commercial segments. Alena Mae S. Flores
Sales of Clark Electric Distribution Corp. and Shin Clark Power Corp. grew steadily, increasing by 3 percent and 17 percent, respectively.
However, Geluz said they are more optimistic for 2026 with the anticipated recovery of the commercial sector.
“But the good thing is, as we continue our aggressive energization this year, it will some sort of generate a lot of sales next year. And we’re hoping that when things normalize, well, technically, it’s one, temperature is extreme from El Nino to La Nina. So we recover some of those lost organic sales by near some sort of normalization of temperature,” Geluz said.
He said they are hoping the vacancy left by POGOs and including condominiums will recover by next year.
In the first nine months, the commercial segment contributed 37 percent of total sales, recording 15,237 GWh in the nine-month period, nearly matching last year’s 15,261 GWh.
Growth was held back by ongoing real estate vacancies, weaker hotel demand due to fewer foreign tourists and frequent heavy rains that caused class and work suspensions, reducing air conditioning use in consumer-facing businesses.
These were partly offset by rising demand from new malls and wholesale supermarkets, and the continued expansion of cafés and quick-service restaurants.
“So that being said, we’re still confident that by next year with the continuous energization that we’re having now, plus some sort of normalization, we’re still confident that next year… so more than 3 percent,” he said.
Meralco’s sales were also impacted by flooding and typhoons, losing 250 GWh from 170 GWh.
The residential segment accounted for 36 percent of total sales in the first nine months and had a slight decline to 14,520 GWh from 14,758 GWh year-on-year, mainly due to a 0.52-degree Celsius temperature drop, unpredictable third-quarter weather during the transition to La Niña that caused outages and, to a certain extent, rooftop installations that tempered domestic demand.
These were partly offset by ongoing energization efforts, which added 309 GWh in sales by the end of September.
Building on its second-quarter momentum, the industrial segment grew to 10,852 GWh from 10,743 GWh, driven by strong demand in semiconductors and construction-related sectors, offsetting declines in food and beverage manufacturing and wheeling from embedded generators.
