Don’t you just hate getting shocked by how much your electricity bill has increased compared to previous months? Now that it's summer once again, your electric consumption is probably higher than before. Here’s a guide on how to compute your Meralco bill to avoid bill shock.
A Breakdown of Your Meralco Bill Payment
Photo: Meralco website
According to Meralco, only 17.5% of your total bill[1] goes to the company. This means that if your total bill for March 2024 is ₱3,000, only ₱525 of this amount goes to Meralco.
So where does the rest of your payment go? Here is Meralco's breakdown of charges.
📌 Generation Charge: 55%
The Generation Charge goes to paying Meralco’s electricity suppliers, like the Independent Power Producers (IPPs) and other power producers.
📌 Transmission Charge: 10.1%
The transmission charge is also known as the delivery charge. When Meralco buys electricity from its power suppliers, it pays 10.1% for the cost of delivery for the electricity to reach Meralco’s distribution system. The transmission charge goes to the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP), which is the provider of transmission services.
📌 Distribution Charge: 17.5%
Meralco takes 17.5% of your monthly bill to cover the cost of distribution, which pays for the construction, development, operation, and maintenance of the distribution system. This distribution system is used in delivering electricity from high-voltage transmission grids to end-users.
📌 Taxes: 11.7%
This covers local franchise tax, Value Added Tax, Tax Recovery Adjustment Charge (TRAC), and Missionary Electrification Charge, just to name a few.
📌 Other Charges: 5.7%
System loss and Feed-in-Tariff Allowance compose other payables covered by your Meralco bill. A portion of your payment also goes to subsidies provided as a lifeline for low-income customers and senior citizens through a discount of 5% on their bills.
What Factors Affect Your Electricity Bill?
According to Meralco, a lot of factors contribute to the increased power rates.
👉 High Heat Index and Increased Demand
Heat index, also known as the apparent temperature, is what the temperature feels like to the human body when relative humidity is combined with the air temperature.[2] The highest heat index so far this year is 47°C in Pangasinan.[3]
When the heat index is high, appliances at home are forced to work harder and longer to cope with the temperature. In contrast, during rainy months, the temperature is colder. You won't feel the need to use the air conditioner or electric fan as much, resulting in lower electricity consumption.
👉 Month-on-Month Rate and Consumption Increase
Hate sudden and significant spikes in your Meralco bill? Before your next Meralco bill arrives, know how to compute your electric consumption for the month based on Meralco’s announced rate increase. This will help you correctly compute your potential bill for the month.
Meralco lowered its overall rate by ₱0.9879 per kWh in April 2024, bringing the overall rate for a typical household down to ₱10.9518 per kWh. This means a typical household consuming 200 kWh per month could expect a decrease of about ₱198 in its electric bill.[4]
👉 Type of Appliance
If you want to learn how to compute your Meralco bill, you should know that the type, quantity, and quality of your appliances can greatly affect your consumption rates.
- Quantity and duration of use - If you use air conditioners instead of electric fans, your electric consumption will be higher. However, if you’re using more than one electric fan for extended hours, then your electricity consumption will be the same as when you’re using an aircon.
- Quality - Did you know that an older appliance consumes more electricity[5] than a newer model? Every appliance loses its energy efficiency as it ages. If you know which appliances you use the most at home and their condition, you’ll have a good idea of how much your bill would be each month.
How to Read Your Electric Meter
Your electric meter plays a critical role in learning how to compute your Meralco bill. Meralco uses your meter readings for the previous month and the present month to determine your total electricity usage in kilowatts per hour (kWh), which is the basis for computing your monthly bill.
Why bother reading your meter yourself? Even if Meralco has trained meter readers who can do the job accurately, being able to read your electric meter lets you keep track of your power consumption to ensure that your household isn't consuming too much electricity.
If your electric meter has a small digital screen display, finding out your electricity consumption is pretty simple and straightforward. Just read the numbers from left to right.
You have an electromechanical meter if it has four dials instead of a digital numerical display. It looks more complicated than a digital meter because its dials move in opposite directions (two moving clockwise and the other two moving counter-clockwise).
But it's actually easy to read. Here's how:
- Simply take note of the number that each dial is pointing at, beginning from the rightmost dial to the leftmost dial.
- Record your reading this month and subtract it from your reading for the following month.
The resulting kWh may not match the actual kWh reflected on your next Meralco bill (as Meralco's meter reading date may be different from yours), but it at least gives you an estimate of your monthly power consumption.
How to Compute Your Meralco Bill
Many factors affect electricity prices, and they change from time to time. Also, your monthly bill consists of several electricity charges that Meralco calculates using various percentages. A Meralco bill might be too complicated for an average consumer to comprehend.
So if you're trying to figure out how to compute your Meralco bill, know that it's impossible to do on your own. You won't know in advance the exact amount to pay for a particular month until your bill arrives.
However, you can compute the cost of using each appliance and electronic device in your home. This can help you save on your electric bill.
Read more: How to Register, View, and Pay Electric Bills on Meralco Online
How to Compute Electric Consumption in the Philippines
👉 Manual Computation
Follow these steps to manually estimate the electricity consumption of a specific device:
- Get your device's wattage. Find this information at the bottom or back of the device, or in the owner's manual. You may also try searching for the device's technical specs online.
- Compute the watts the device consumes daily. Multiply the wattage by the average number of hours the device is used per day. Let's say you use a 100-watt electric fan for 10 hours per day. Multiplying 100 watts by 10 hours will result in 1,000 watt-hours—that's how much your electric fan consumes in a day.
- Convert watt-hours to kilowatts. Divide the device's watt-hours by 1,000 to convert it to kilowatts, which is the unit of measurement used in a Meralco bill. In the example above, 1,000 watt-hours divided by 1,000 is equal to 1 kWh consumption per day.
- Compute the device's monthly power consumption. Multiply your device's daily kWh by 30 days to determine how much it consumes per month. The monthly usage for an electric fan consuming 1 kWh daily is 30 kWh.
List down the monthly electricity usage of your appliances and devices and rank them from highest to lowest. This will let you know which ones consume the most electricity and should be used less and unplugged more often.
👉 Online Computation Using the Meralco Calculator
If you want to know the cost of using your home appliances and devices, you can also easily use an online calculator—such as the Meralco Appliance Calculator—that will compute it for you.
The Appliance Energy Calculator is currently available both on the Meralco website (appliancecalculator.meralco.com.ph) and mobile app. It's the best way to compute electric consumption if you're not too handy with manual computations.
Here's how to compute how many kWh an appliance uses:
- Tap on the Appliance Calculator icon.
- Enter your average monthly bill amount. Just estimate the average based on your latest Meralco billing statements.
- Pick an appliance from the drop-down menu. Tap the Set button. The app will show you the appliance's wattage.
- Choose the number of hours you use the appliance in a day. Select also the number of days in a week and weeks in a month the appliance is used.
- Tap the Calculate button. You'll see the electricity cost per hour, day, week, and month of your appliance.
You can compute only one appliance at a time. Repeat the entire procedure if you want to compute your electricity cost for other appliances.
👉 Online Computation Using the Wattmatters Calculator
A project by the Department of Energy that promotes energy efficiency, Wattmatters.org.ph has an online consumption calculator that lets you find out how much each of your appliances contributes to your monthly Meralco bill.
Unlike the Meralco Appliance Calculator, the Wattmatter Calculator allows you to simultaneously compute for two or more appliances to get your total monthly bill.
Here's how to compute your Meralco bill using the Wattmatters Calculator:
- Go to Wattmatter's Consumption Calculator page.[6]
- Click the Let's Start button.
- Select the category of appliances and the brand and model you have at home.
- Choose the number of hours you use the appliance per day and the unit cost.
- Click the Calculate button to see the electricity cost of the appliance per day.
- Keep adding other appliances to the Meralco bill computation by repeating all the previous steps per appliance.
- When you're done adding all your appliances, check your monthly bill at the bottom of the table.
How to File a Complaint for Meralco Bill Disputes
Do you have concerns about your Meralco bill? Is your electric bill way higher than last month's? For such concerns, you can contact Meralco through the following:
- Residential Hotline: 16211
- Business Hotline: 16210
- Email: customercare@meralco.com.ph
How to Compute Meralco Bill: FAQs
1. How much is the Meralco rate per kWh in 2024?
Meralco had a power rate decrease of ₱0.9879 per kWh in April 2024, bringing it down to ₱10.9518 per kWh.
2. How do you compute electric consumption using a submeter?
It’s the same as computing through the main Meralco meter. The rate, however, will depend on your agreement with the primary owner of the Meralco account.
3. How do you pay your Meralco bill using a credit card?
You can pay your Meralco bill via credit card in three ways:
- Auto Payment Arrangement - Set this up via Meralco Online and your credit card will be charged every Meralco due date.
- Meralco Online - On the official Meralco app, enter your credit card details and the amount due. A payment gateway will process your payment.
- Online/Mobile banking - Log in to your credit card account on a mobile app or a web browser. Just take note of your Customer Account Number.
Here are a few credit cards you can use to pay Meralco bills and your other utilities. With the following cards, you can earn rebates on utility payments, earn cash back, enjoy hassle-free auto-charge payments, and more:
| Credit Card | Bills Payment Perks |
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HSBC Red Mastercard
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Security Bank Complete Cashback Mastercard
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BPI Amore Cashback Card
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AUB Easy Mastercard
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Read more related articles:
- Got Bills to Pay? Here's Your Guide to Bills Payment Centers in the Philippines
- Beat the Due Date: Where to Pay Your Bills Online
- How to Check and Pay Your Maynilad Bill Online: Simple Steps to Follow
Final Thoughts
Knowing how to compute your Meralco bill can save you a lot of stress come bills payment time. Understanding the factors that affect your monthly bill can help you cut down on electricity usage as well.
Just like paying for your Meralco bill, computing it in advance is somewhat painful. Still, it's necessary to ensure your household electricity consumption remains under control.
Sources:
- [1] Meralco Breakdown of Charges
- [2] What is the heat index? (National Weather Service)
- [3] 24 areas under ‘danger’ heat classification — PAGASA (Philstar, 2024)
- [4] Meralco April 2024 Rates Updates
- [5] Impact of aging on the energy efficiency of household refrigerating appliances (Science Direct, 2024)
- [6] Wattmatters Calculator
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