Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) saw its energy sales in the first eight months of 2026 slightly improve as the utility giant racked up more customers.
Charina Padua, senior vice president and head of customer relations and services at Meralco, said the sales of the group’s distribution business reached 35,938 gigawatt hours (GWh) in the January to August period, up 0.7 percent from a year ago.
‘[The] slight increase was driven by consistent energization performance, offsetting a slight decline in organic sales due to cooler weather,’ Padua told reporters.
‘We’re forecasting continued recovery for the third quarter of 2026,’ she added.
Ronnie Aperocho, executive vice president and chief operating officer of Meralco, earlier said that the company expects power sales volume is expected to rise by 2 percent to 2.5 percent this year, an improvement from the flat sales volume of 53,997 GWh in 2025.
Energy sales growth
However, the anticipated energy sales growth was slightly lower than its initial forecast of 3 percent.
Aperocho said the dip in demand could be blamed on the growing adoption of rooftop solar among households and businesses. Energy conservation efforts, particularly among shopping mall operators, duringt the height of the Middle East war could have also affected consumption.
But Aperocho remained optimistic that Meralco could regain stronger figures in the face of the expected worsening of the current El Niño.
El Niño is attended by the abnormal warming of the Pacific Ocean’s surface temperatures near the equator. This climate phenomenon is often linked to drought and less than normal rainfall in the western side of the Pacific where the Philippines is located.
Meralco’s distribution business continued to give the largest share at P12.7 billion, accounting for 48 percent of the group’s consolidated core earnings in the first semester of this year.