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It began with a familiar frustration.
Antonette Aquino, a Meralco customer, recently posted her electricity bill online, questioning why her charges had surged despite minimal changes in usage. Her complaint resonated widely because it reflected a broader reality: electricity bills across the Philippines have been rising—and not just because of fuel costs.
After noting that the generation charge accounts for the bulk of her electricity bill, Aquino pointed to other significant sources of the increase: “What keeps going up is everything sitting on top of it.”
She was referring to layered add-ons such as system loss, universal charges, and government taxes—alongside newer levies like the Feed-in Tariff Allowance (FIT-All) and the Green Energy Auction Allowance (GEA-All). “Two separate renewable energy levies running at the same time,” she lamented. “The second one was quietly added to bills in February 2026. Both government-mandated. Neither one is optional.”
(Also read: Ilocos Norte Launches First Government-Led Rooftop Solar Program with ACEN, GCash)
The April 2026 Reality: Rising Bills, Real Numbers
In April 2026, Meralco raised electricity rates by ₱0.5335 per kilowatt-hour (kWh), pushing the total rate to ₱14.3496/kWh from ₱13.8161 the previous month. For a typical household consuming 200 kWh, that translates into an increase of around ₱107 in a single month.
The explanation was familiar: peso depreciation, higher generation costs, and tight supply in the Luzon grid. But buried within the bill structure is something less visible and more structural.
Electricity bills are not just about energy consumption. They include government-mandated charges, including those tied to renewable energy. As Meralco itself notes, many of these are pass-through costs, meaning they are collected from consumers and remitted elsewhere.
Two of the most important—and least understood—charges are the FIT-All and GEA-All. These are not optional. They are mandatory, system-wide charges applied to all electricity users.
The GEA-All charge is set at ₱0.0371 per kWh starting January 2026, and is collected from “all customers” to fund renewable energy projects. It is explicitly described as a “pass-through charge”, meaning Meralco does not earn from it, but consumers still pay.
More striking is the combined impact. In early 2026, the FIT-All and GEA-All charges together reached ₱0.2382/kWh. That may seem small, but multiplied across millions of households and businesses, it represents billions of pesos in annual cost recovery.
FIT-All supports older renewable energy projects through guaranteed rates, while GEA-All supports newer projects under auction mechanisms. Renewable energy developers are offered guaranteed prices, often set above prevailing market rates, to encourage investment, and the gap between these guaranteed prices and actual market prices is recovered from all electricity consumers through universal charges embedded in electricity bills. This creates a system where investors receive predictable long-term returns while consumers absorb the price risk needed to secure those payments in the market.
Critics Push Back
BusinessWorld columnist Bienvenido S. Oplas Jr. was blunt in his assessment, noting that such mechanisms ultimately mean that “we will pay more for electricity.” He added that the economic team’s anti-inflation measures and the Bangko Sentral’s efforts “will be cancelled by the expensive wind projects and lobby. Woe unto us consumers.”
The National Association of Electricity Consumers for Reform (NASECORE) also called on the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) to fully account for all funds collected under FIT-All. The group appealed in October 2025 after the ERC announced that the FIT-All charge would increase the following month.
ERC Chairperson Niño Juan said the adjustment is part of efforts to expand renewable energy in the country, arguing that it will ultimately benefit consumers by supporting cleaner power sources and reducing reliance on fossil fuels. However, NASECORE questioned the impact on household electricity costs.
Based on 2024 data cited by NASECORE, around 104,000 gigawatt-hours (GWh) of electricity were sold nationwide, generating over ₱12 billion in FIT-All collections at a rate of ₱0.11 per kWh. If the charge is raised to ₱0.21 per kWh and consumption levels remain unchanged, annual collections could reach about ₱22 billion. The group also stressed that government authorities should introduce safeguards to shield consumers from further increases in electricity rates.
Additionally, the Partners for Affordable and Reliable Energy (PARE) said the energy transition should not be implemented in a way that burdens consumers with additional charges designed to reduce investment risk for renewable energy developers. The group raised the concern following ERC’s approval of the GEA-All’s collection.
“For us consumers, particularly low-income households and those in rural or missionary areas, any additional charge or hidden cost related to Green Energy Auctions, new transition funds, or compliance with transition targets can worsen already rising electricity prices and squeeze budgets at a time of increasing food, transport, and housing costs,” said PARE Chief Advocate Officer Nic Satur, Jr.
Meanwhile, Manila Bulletin’s Myrna Velasco questioned whether the GEA-All charge has a solid legal basis, warning that consumers may be paying for something that lacks sufficient statutory grounding.
“This charge lacks explicit juridical anchoring in the RE Law itself. Instead, it traces its origin to a Department of Energy (DOE) circular—an administrative issuance whose authority rests more on regulatory interpretation than a clear legislative mandate,” she stated. “Consequently, its legal standing is on shaky ground.”
Velasco explained that the Renewable Energy (RE) Law established a clear and narrowly defined framework through the FIT system, where the FIT-All under Section 7 was intended as a specific, consumer-funded mechanism. She stressed that the law limited such support to identified technologies under the FIT scheme, rather than allowing an open-ended system of charges.
She also questioned the expansion of costs under the GEA-All, noting that consumers are now being made to shoulder expenses that include mature technologies such as geothermal and large-scale hydro. Velasco also pointed out that the RE Law contains no explicit provision establishing a GEA system, drawing scrutiny on whether its implementation remains consistent with the law’s original intent.
“It is deeply troubling that despite billions in subsidies shouldered by consumers, repeated requests for disclosure of FIT-All and GEA-All payments to developers have been met with a lack of transparency,” she asserted. “Full disclosure would allow the public to see which players are reaping outsized gains and assess whether returns have crossed the line from policy support to windfall profits. This is especially pertinent as the DOE pursues a decade-long pipeline of auctions, including high-cost technologies like offshore wind.”
(Also read: Why Offshore Wind May Come at the Worst Time for Consumers)
A just transition?
The next phase of renewable expansion, particularly offshore wind (OSW), further illustrates the cost structure of the energy transition. The ERC has approved a ₱11.00/kWh ceiling price for offshore wind under GEA-5, up from an earlier ₱10.3859/kWh benchmark, reflecting revised cost assumptions and project requirements for offshore development. Industry assessments have described OSW as substantially more capital-intensive than other renewable technologies, reflecting higher upfront infrastructure and development costs.
So, the narrative that green energy is cheap is not entirely accurate. While renewable energy is often projected to become more cost-efficient in the long run, the current transition still carries high costs that are reflected in electricity prices today. This raises policy questions on how the government should structure and finance the energy transition while ensuring that power remains affordable and reliable for consumers already facing financial strain.
“The message is that transition will not be smooth, and renewables will not immediately translate into cheaper electricity,” Rappler’s Val Villanueva said. Immediate impact on households must be considered alongside long-term goals.
Velasco added, “Renewables may be saving the planet, but when they drain your wallet, gobble up farmland, trample biodiversity, and displace indigenous communities, that ‘green beauty’ quickly turns into a pricey, chaotic mess that nobody signed up for.”
Sources:
https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=4506298383026396&set=a.1699031160419813
http://company.meralco.com.ph/news-and-advisories/higher-residential-rates-april-2026
https://law.asia/philippines-fit-all-2025
https://mb.com.ph/2026/04/27/no-solid-legal-basis-for-gea-all-charge-in-electric-bills
https://mb.com.ph/2025/12/22/bbm-admins-emerging-legacy-normalizing-high-power-rates
https://www.philstar.com/business/2026/02/23/2509707/erc-raises-ceiling-price-offshore-wind-auction
https://www.wfw.com/articles/2026-update-offshore-wind-in-the-philippines/