CCTV Electricity Cost in the Philippines

Meralco rates are near record levels, so guessing what an appliance costs is an expensive habit. Here is the arithmetic for a CCTV system at the current rate, with every assumption written down so you can change it.

What drives the number

Only three things decide the cost: the wattage, the hours, and the rate. Wattage is fixed by the unit you own and is printed on the nameplate. The rate is fixed by Meralco and changes monthly. Hours is the only one under your control, which is why the table below is the useful one.

Cost by hours used per day

Small draws that never switch off

Home electronics are individually cheap and collectively persistent. A modem drawing 10 W costs little per hour but runs 8,760 hours a year, and that continuous pattern is what makes it worth counting.

Modern equipment is far better than it used to be. The old advice about unplugging everything to save money was written when standby draw was ten times what it is now. The devices that still matter are the ones genuinely running around the clock rather than sitting idle.

How to spend less on it

• Count the hours honestly. A device on 24 hours at low draw can beat one on two hours at high draw.
• Use a switched extension for equipment that does not need to stay on overnight.
• Check picture settings on a television. Vivid mode runs the backlight at full.

Reading this against your actual Meralco bill

Your bill shows total kWh consumed and the amount charged. Divide the total by the kWh and you get your real effective rate, which will differ from the headline figure because of lifeline discounts, senior citizen discounts and the refunds Meralco is currently passing back.

Households consuming 100 kWh or less qualify automatically for the lifeline rate, which is substantially cheaper and applied without registration. If that is you, every figure on this page is an overestimate. Put your own effective rate into the calculator above and the numbers will correct themselves.

How the Meralco rate has moved this year

The same CCTV system cost noticeably less in January than it does now, with nobody changing how they use it. The generation charge is repriced every month against fuel costs, the peso-dollar rate and the wholesale spot market, so these figures move with it.

Compared with the alternatives

Running a CCTV system on solar

The Philippines averages roughly 4.8 peak sun hours a day, well above most of Europe or the northern United States. That, plus a grid rate near fifteen pesos, is why rooftop solar pays back faster here than international figures suggest, often in three to five years in Meralco territory.

Panels only produce in daylight. If the CCTV system runs at night, that energy has to come from a battery, and batteries remain the expensive part of a Philippine solar quote. Net metering credits exports at the generation charge rather than the full retail rate, so using your own production during the day is worth considerably more than selling it back. Financing options including the SSS Energy Sustainability Loan are worth reading before you commit.

Questions people actually ask

Work it out with your own numbers

• Meralco rate and every appliance cost
• Electricity Cost Calculator
• Whole-Home Appliance Load Calculator
• Solar Payback Calculator
• SSS Solar Loan Guide