How a Philippine electric bill is put together

Your bill is a list rather than a price, and that is not the utility being awkward. It is the law. Republic Act 9136 requires every distribution utility to identify and separate the components of the retail rate in the bills it sends you, so what arrives is a stack of charges, each recovering a different thing.

It matters before you buy solar, because solar works on some of those lines and not others. That is the difference between a bill that falls a long way and a bill that reaches zero, and only one of them is on offer.

Why it is itemised at all

Section 25 of the Act is one sentence long on this point. Every distribution utility shall identify and segregate in its bills to end-users the components of the retail rate, as defined in this Act. Before that, a bill could be a single figure; after it, the parts have to be shown separately.

Section 5 of the same Act divides the industry into four sectors: generation, transmission, distribution and supply. That is the shape the stack on your bill follows.

Source: Republic Act 9136, the Electric Power Industry Reform Act of 2001. The Energy Regulatory Commission sets the format the components are shown in, following the Act. We have not linked the Commission's own issuance because its website refuses us, and we would rather say that than cite something we have not read.

Which parts solar can reach

Drawn in the page rather than generated, and grouped by what happens when you take fewer kilowatt hours from the grid. The grouping is reasoned from the Act's own definitions, which say what each charge is for. It is not a tariff, and there are no amounts here.

The top band is the only one a smaller draw from the grid reduces. The band under it exists to recover meter reading, billing and collection, which costs the same whatever the meter reads. The five below are named here and not computed here, because the Act says what each is for and leaves the working to the regulator.

Solar reaches this Falls when you draw less from the grid This is the part solar works on.

The electricity you actually took from the utility

Generation is one of the four sectors the Act names in Section 5. Take fewer kilowatt hours from the grid and you are buying less of this.

Solar does not reach this There whether you use less or not This is why the bill does not reach zero.

Customer Service Charge

The Act defines it as recovering meter reading, billing administration and collection. Somebody reads your meter and issues your bill whether it reads one kilowatt hour or a thousand, so cutting your usage does not cut this.

Regulated Set by the regulator, and this page does not guess Named here, not computed here.

Transmission Charge
Distribution Wheeling Charge
Universal Charge
Subsidies such as the Lifeline Rate
Government taxes

The Act says what each of these is FOR and leaves how it is computed to the Energy Regulatory Commission. We are not going to tell you how yours is worked out when the law does not say and we have not read your bill.

What the Act actually calls them

Quoted rather than paraphrased, because a paraphrase of a definition is not a definition. These are from Section 4.

Customer Service Charge: the component in the retail rate intended for the cost recovery of customer-related services including, but not limited to, meter reading, billing administration and collection.
Distribution Wheeling Charge: the cost or charge regulated by the ERC for the use of a distribution system and/or the availment of related services.
Transmission Charge: the regulated cost or charges for the use of a transmission system which may include the availment of ancillary services.
Universal Charge: the charge, if any, imposed for the recovery of the stranded cost and other purposed pursuant to Section 34 hereof.
Lifeline Rate: the subsidized rate given to low-income captive market end-users who cannot afford to pay at full cost.

So what does this mean for solar

A system sized to your own usage reduces what you take from the grid, and that shows up in the part of the bill you are buying electricity with. The charge that exists to recover meter reading, billing and collection does not move, because none of that work got cheaper. Anybody promising you a bill of zero is either selling you something much larger than you asked for, or has not read the Act.

The useful number to start from is the one on your own statement: the total amount due divided by the kilowatt hours billed. That is the rate the sizing tool asks for, and it is not the generation charge on its own.

Put your own bill into the sizing tool

What happens to what you export, and who you apply to

What the system loss line pays for

Send us the kilowatt hours off your own statement

Tell us what the meter reads and what the property is, and you will get a written answer with a size and a next step.

Ask for a quotation

Tell us the property and what you are trying to cut, and you will get a written answer with a size and a next step. No visit is booked and nothing is charged for asking.