Your Meralco bill is consumption multiplied by a rate that changes every month. Knowing what a given number of kilowatt-hours should cost lets you spot when a bill is wrong, and more usefully, tells you what your usage is actually made of.
At the current all-in residential rate of [hed_ph_rate] per kWh, a household using 200 kWh should see a bill near ₱2,957. At 300 kWh it is about ₱4,435, and at 500 kWh roughly ₱7,392. Lifeline customers under 100 kWh pay substantially less.
Bill by monthly consumption
[hed_ph_bill_table]Why your bill moves when your habits do not
Roughly 55 to 64 percent of the bill is the generation charge, which Meralco buys and passes through without markup. It is repriced monthly against fuel costs, the peso-dollar exchange rate and the wholesale spot market. Transmission goes to the grid operator. Meralco own distribution charge has not moved since August 2022.
So when a bill jumps, generation is almost always the cause, and the second cause is simply hotter weather. Meralco reports residential demand rising 20 to 33 percent during the dry season, entirely from cooling.
Lifeline and senior discounts
Households consuming 50 kWh or less receive a 100 percent discount under the national lifeline threshold. Between 51 and 70 kWh the discount is 35 percent, and 71 to 100 kWh gets 20 percent. These apply automatically from meter history with no registration. Senior citizen discounts apply separately.