New RE charges hit power bills in 2026

December 14, 2025 | 12:00am

MANILA, Philippines — Households and businesses are set to absorb P5.7 billion in additional charges on their electricity bills starting next year to fund the incentives of new renewable energy (RE) projects.

This comes after the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) approved National Transmission Corp.’s (TransCo) application to collect the green energy auction allowance (GEA-All).

At a recent press briefing, ERC chairperson and CEO Francis Saturnino Juan announced that the new fee, equivalent to P0.0371 per kilowatt-hour (kWh), will appear as a separate line item in the customer billing effective January.

GEA-All will support various RE projects, including hydro, biomass, ground-mounted, roof-mounted and floating solar, along with onshore wind and integrated RE facilities with battery storage that were awarded under the government’s GEA program.

These projects, scheduled for delivery between 2023 and 2029, have secured 20-year contracts that guarantee stable revenues for their power generation output.

The ERC has directed the distribution utilities, the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines and the retail electricity suppliers to collect the GEA-All charges from their respective customers.

The collection agents are also mandated to remit all proceeds in full to the GEA-All Fund not later than the 15th day of the month following each billing period.

The new fee comes on top of the existing feed-in-tariff allowance (FIT-All), a uniform charge imposed on all on-grid consumers for the power generation of eligible RE sources like solar, wind and small hydro plants.

FIT-All charges are also remitted to TransCo to settle the outstanding payments to RE producers and maintain a buffer to avoid delays in future disbursements.

For 2026, the regulator fixed the FIT-All rate at P0.2011 per kWh, marking a reduction of less than a centavo from the current rate being charged by TransCo.

“For the first time since the FIT implementation began, the ERC has been able to set the FIT-All rate before the year it is meant to be applied,” Juan said.

“This demonstrates the ERC’s commitment to acting swiftly and with urgency on all filings, thereby fostering a more stable and predictable regulatory environment,” he added.