Philippines rushes to rooftop solar as power bills surge

Manila households got another jolt in June as Meralco lifted its generation charge to P9.0704 per kWh from P8.7942 a month earlier, adding about P30 to a 200 kWh bill.

Ember's latest Philippines analysis puts residential electricity prices 17% higher in May 2026 than a year earlier, making the Philippines the costliest residential electricity market in Southeast Asia. Ember puts a household using 200 kWh a month, roughly the average for three people, at spending about 12% of monthly income on power. Ember's latest Philippines analysis puts payback times for rooftop solar at 3.1 years, down from 4.0 years.

Adrian Sabatera, a 39-year-old software engineer, bought a 570,000 peso rooftop system for the house he shares with three others after years of considering it. Falling equipment costs and rising utility bills changed the calculation, and Sabatera would not be surprised if a third of the middle class eventually follows the same path.

The Philippines brought in $407 million worth of solar panels in the three months through May, up 145% from a year earlier. Ember puts Chinese exports of solar panels to the Philippines at more than 3,000 MW in March and April alone, while 2025 net imports of solar panel capacity reached 5,068 MW, more than five times the 800 MW of grid-connected utility-scale solar installed that year.

Philergy German Solar saw inquiries jump more than 2.5 times and at one point reached 3,000 a day. The Department of Energy fast-tracked net-metering applications and simplified permitting, giving distribution utilities and electric cooperatives 10 working days to act and local governments three working days to approve. Ember estimates distributed solar capacity could nearly triple to 3,500 MW within two years. Ember measured rooftop solar at 712 MW through satellite imagery up to January 2025, with another 600 MW estimated online by April 2026, while solar and wind still supplied just 4% of Philippine electricity in 2025 against 77% from fossil fuels.