Sky-high power bills push Pinoys to go solar

Special report

MANILA, Philippines — For many Filipino families living from paycheck to paycheck, the electricity bill arrives as a monthly reminder of just how expensive it has become to live decently in the Philippines.

Every month, households face the constant struggle of stretching every peso across food, rent, school, transportation and other basic necessities.

And when power rates rise further, families are forced to make difficult choices about what to pay now and what can wait.

For some, it means postponing a grocery run until the next payday. For others, it means putting off their children’s school needs just to keep up with the bills.

As electricity costs continue to eat into household budgets, a growing number of Filipinos are looking up to their rooftops for a way out.

Mariano Lerit, a retired overseas Filipino worker, has turned to solar power to help ease his family’s monthly electricity burden.

“Malaki ang tulong. Halos P12,000 ang monthly bill namin. Ang SSS (Social Security System) pension ko na P8,000 ay kulang pa sa pambayad ng kuryente (It helps a lot. Our monthly bill is almost P12,000. My P8,000 SSS pension is not even enough to pay for the electricity),” the 64-year-old resident of Guagua, Pampanga told The STAR.

After years of working abroad, Lerit returned to the Philippines and used his SSS lump-sum benefit, along with personal savings, to install a solar power system at their home.

The high upfront cost of installation, however, pushed him to look for a cheaper option. He sourced the equipment himself and took on the installation to save on costs.

Lerit estimated that the eight-kilowatt-peak (kWp) system cost around P350,000, well below the nearly P500,000 he was initially quoted.

“So ngayon, for almost two years, nag-zero po ang billing namin. Kung tag-ulan naman na hindi masyadong nakaka-harvest ang solar, nagbabayad po kami ng P1,000 to P2,000 (So now, for almost two years, our billing has been zero. During the rainy season, when the solar system cannot harvest as much energy, we pay P1,000 to P2,000),” he said.

For Lerit, the savings have changed more than just the amount on his monthly bill. They have also changed how his family uses electricity at home.

Simple comforts that once felt too costly have become part of their daily routine. Once careful about every appliance they switch on, his family can now use electricity more freely, even for cooking.

They can now take warm showers using an electric heater and sleep more comfortably at night with air conditioning.

“Nagdagdag pa kami ng AC sa buong sala namin (We also added an AC unit to our entire living room),” Lerit said.

Solar loan

Lerit’s experience is shared by Manuel Catanduanes, a 42-year-old resident of Cabuyao, Laguna.

Although Catanduanes has only had his solar system for a short time, he said the difference was already noticeable.

“From a bill of P7,000 to P8,000, our latest bill was P1,900,” he told The STAR.

Catanduanes said they spent more than P200,000 for a 5.8-kWp solar power system, which his family had to take out a loan to afford.

The cost included around P60,000 for net metering, which allows households to send excess solar power back to the grid in exchange for credits on their electricity bills.

Now, the savings from Catanduanes’ power bills are being used to pay off the loan that made the solar installation possible.

“Mas katanggap-tanggap na magbayad ng loan kaysa magbayad sa utility provider (It is more acceptable to pay the loan than to pay the utility provider),” he stressed.

Cabuyao, where Catanduanes lives, gets its electricity from Manila Electric Co. (Meralco), the country’s largest power utility serving more than eight million customers.

Latest Department of Energy (DOE) data showed Meralco ranking fourth among power utilities with the highest on-grid residential rate at P14.48 per kW-hour in June.

Red tape

While solar can help lower electricity bills, getting the full benefit is not as simple as installing panels on the roof.

Households that want to sell power to the grid and earn credits on their bills must first go through the net metering process.

Amid the energy emergency, the DOE has ordered power utilities to process net metering applications within 10 working days, while local government unit (LGU) approvals are limited to three working days.

Before the Middle East crisis erupted in late February, power utilities were given up to 20 working days to process applications, while LGU processing times varied.

The shorter timelines are meant to cut red tape and help households start saving sooner.

On paper, the entire process should take only a little over two weeks. But on the ground, the reality can be quite different.

It took four months for Catanduanes to complete the net metering process, which he attributed to delays in securing LGU approval and strict requirements from the power utility.

“Please report anyone causing delays,” Energy Secretary Sharon Garin said when asked about complaints from consumers facing delays in their net metering applications.

Garin admitted that it may take time for both power utilities and LGUs to fully adjust to and comply with the shorter timelines.

“And what the DOE is doing is some capacity building for each and every LGU. So, there is some resistance because it is new,” the energy chief said.

Net metering itself is not new in the Philippines, as the program is already provided for under Republic Act 9513, or the Renewable Energy Act of 2008.

As early as 2013, the Energy Regulatory Commission had adopted rules enabling the net metering program.

Grease payments

A quick visit to Facebook groups where consumers share their experiences with net metering also shows how delays remain a common concern.

Some even claimed they were compelled to give “padulas” or grease payments to LGU employees to speed up the process.

“If you have a contact inside the city engineering office, the process is quick as long as you give a grease payment,” one Facebook user shared.

Lerit has also experienced these net metering challenges firsthand, dealing with both LGUs and power utilities. After successfully installing a solar system at his home, he eventually turned his experience into a business.

Through El Solaris Solar Solutions, Lerit and his team now install solar panels for clients across Pampanga and Bulacan.

“Maraming instances na talagang naranasan ko ’yung pabalik-balik sa pag-approve pa lang ng documents… na madalas, parang interpretasyon ko, gusto lang maglagay para mapabilis ang approval,” Lerit said.

(There were many instances when I experienced having to go back and forth just to get the documents approved… which, in my interpretation, often seemed like they just wanted a grease payment to accelerate the approval.)

Having installed solar panels and helped around 20 households complete the net metering process, Lerit said the longest approval he has encountered took six months.

In one case, he said, an employee of a power utility even offered to speed up a net metering application in exchange for a P50,000 payment.

“Marami po ngayong hinaing ang mga nagpapa-solar dahil sa tagal at mahal na pagkuha ng net metering (There are many complaints now from those having solar systems installed because of the long and costly process of completing net metering),” Lerit lamented.

Own-use solar

While streamlining net metering remains a challenge, the DOE is taking a different approach for those that simply want to generate their own electricity.

The DOE has directed power utilities to eliminate unnecessary pre-installation clearances, technical permits and inspection charges as conditions for connection.

The directive covers zero-export solar systems and micro-solar systems, which are designed to supply electricity for own use without exporting excess power to the grid.

“By simplifying the process and removing unnecessary costs and requirements, we are opening the door for more households, clinics and small businesses to generate clean electricity for their own use and reduce their dependence on electricity from the grid,” Garin said.

Faster returns

In recent years, more households and businesses in the Philippines have turned to solar as they grapple with some of the highest electricity prices in Southeast Asia.

The solar shift has gained further momentum as the Middle East conflict sent energy prices higher.

According to global energy think tank Ember, households can now recover solar installation costs in just 3.1 years, down from about four years previously.

“The economics of rooftop solar are more attractive than ever, and its rapid rise is inevitable,” Ember chief analyst David Jones said.

Citing the United Nations’ commodity trade statistics database, Ember found that the Philippines’ solar panel imports grew to $483 million in 2025 from the previous year’s $365 million.

Notably, 98 percent of those imports came from China, making Manila the second-largest market for solar panels from Beijing.

“The government has an opportunity to carve its own path on rooftop solar, to pull the Philippines out of fossil dependency and onto a path of cheap, abundant electricity,” Jones said.

At least nine in 10 Filipinos demand government action to make rooftop solar affordable, based on a recent nationwide Pulse Asia survey.

The survey also found that most respondents view rooftop solar as a necessity rather than a luxury.

Solar installations support the government’s target of increasing the share of renewables in the power mix to 35 percent by 2030 and 50 percent by 2040 from the current 25 percent.

The Philippine Solar and Storage Energy Alliance (PSSEA) is urging the government to prioritize several policies, including a faster permitting process, expanded transmission infrastructure, timely grid interconnections and stronger support for energy storage systems.

“The alliance also underscored the importance of empowering consumers through distributed energy resources such as rooftop solar and net metering, allowing households and businesses to become active participants in the energy transition,” PSSEA said in a statement sent to The STAR.

Rooftop solar monitoring

The National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP), meanwhile, is also calling for better monitoring of how much rooftop solar capacity is connected to the grid.

NGCP spokesperson Cynthia Alabanza told The STAR that tracking rooftop solar penetration would help the grid operator better prepare for sudden changes in power supply and demand.

For instance, if many homes in one area have rooftop solar systems, a sudden cloud cover could cause their panels to produce less electricity at the same time.

Since most rooftop solar users remain connected to the grid, Alabanza said they would rely on their distribution utilities for the electricity they need. The utilities, in turn, would draw additional supply from the transmission network.

“It might cause a crash (in the grid),” she said, noting that the same risk could also arise from too much solar generation.

For many Filipinos like Lerit and Catanduanes, the equation is much simpler. They see the panels on their roofs as a way to fight back against sky-high electricity bills.

Their stories, however, reveal a harsh reality that while sunlight is free, access to the savings it can bring is not.