Ahead of official announcements of rate adjustments for August, the Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) said the cost of electricity in its franchise area would likely increase due to higher generation and transmission charges.
Joe Zaldarriaga, Meralco vice president and head of corporate communications, said in a statement on Monday that the expected higher generation charge for the month is driven by the depreciation of the Philippine peso against the US dollar to its weakest level since the start of the year.
Meralco said such development impacts Independent Power Producers and Power Supply Agreements whose costs are mostly dollar denominated.
“The higher prices in the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM) in the July supply month as reported by IEMOP (Independent Electricity Market Operator of the Philippines) may also contribute to the expected increase,” Zaldarriaga said.
“As for the transmission charge, we expect an increase beginning this August billing month with the start of the implementation of National Grid Corporation of the Philippines’ (NGCP) cost recovery as approved by the Energy Regulatory Commission,” he added.
Generation charge is the total amount of electricity procured by Meralco to supply to its customers while transmission charge is the amount collected by the company to pay NGCP’s services.
Meralco is scheduled to announce its official August 2025 power rates movement on Tuesday (August 12).
Last month, Meralco implemented a P0.4883 per kilowatt hour (kWh) increase in its rates mainly driven by higher generation charges pushed by more expensive fuel costs and foreign exchange performance.
July’s adjustment was equivalent to an increase of around P98 in the bill of a residential customer consuming 200 kWh monthly. It brought overall power rates to P12.6435 per kWh from the previous P12.1552 per kWh.
Under Meralco’s current franchise, the company serves the entire cities of Caloocan, Las Piñas, Makati, Malabon, Mandaluyong, Manila, Markina, Muntinlupa, Navotas, Parañaque, Pasay, Pasig, Quezon, San Juan, Taguig, and Valenzuela and the municipality of Pateros in Metro Manila.
It also serves as the distribution utility for some parts of Bulacan, Cavite, Rizal, Batangas, Laguna, Quezon Province and Pampanga.
Earlier, IEMOP said the average price of electricity in the WESM for the entire country increased as of July 25, 2025.
Based on data from IEMOP, average price per kWh in WESM for the entire Philippines was at P3.99 compared to June’s P3.86 per kWh, equivalent to a 3.4 percent rise. The increase was driven by lower available power supply for the month as a significant volume of power plants are under scheduled and unplanned maintenance outages.
