MANILA, Philippines — Two San Miguel Global Power companies and an AboitizPower-controlled generator have moved to the front of the race for one of Meralco’s biggest long-term electricity supply contracts, after submitting the three lowest offers for a combined 600 megawatts of baseload power.
But despite the headline-grabbing prices, the contest is not officially over.
Mariveles Power Generation Corp. (MPGC) submitted the lowest total levelized cost of electricity at ₱5.3573 per kilowatt-hour for 200 MW, according to results of Manila Electric Co.’s competitive selection process opened on September 1.
Another San Miguel Global Power unit, Sual Power Inc. (SPI), followed with an offer of ₱5.4357 per kWh for another 200 MW.
Completing the prospective 600-MW package was GNPower Mariveles Energy Center (GMEC), controlled by AboitizPower through Therma Power. GMEC initially offered the entire 600 MW at ₱5.5789 per kWh, but subsequently reduced the capacity attached to its offer to 200 MW, allowing the requirement to be divided evenly among the three lowest bidders.
Three companies now control the lowest-price positions
The bidding gives San Miguel Global Power a potentially significant share of Meralco’s future baseload requirements.
If the results survive post-qualification and receive all required approvals, MPGC and Sual Power could together provide 400 MW—or two-thirds—of the 600-MW requirement, while GMEC would supply the remaining 200 MW.
Meralco said six of the nine generation companies that had initially shown interest ultimately submitted qualification documents, technical proposals and price offers.
Behind the three lowest offers, Masinloc Power Co. Ltd. bid ₱5.6290 per kWh for 200 MW, while Therma Luzon Inc. offered ₱5.6988 per kWh for 194 MW.
Energy Development Corp. was also among the six final participants. Meralco said all offers other than EDC’s were below the applicable reserve prices set for the auction.
The quoted offers include value-added tax and a capped line-rental charge, an important distinction when comparing the numbers with other power-price quotations.
The ₱5.36 figure does not mean Meralco bills will fall to ₱5.36
For consumers, the auction prices are significant—but they should not be confused with the final electricity rate appearing on a household bill.
The ₱5.3573-per-kWh figure represents the levelized cost associated with MPGC’s proposed generation supply under the bidding process. A Meralco customer’s total bill contains other components beyond the cost of power generation.
That means the auction could influence future generation costs once the contracts take effect, but it would be misleading to interpret the winning bid price as a future all-in residential electricity rate.
Actual bills will continue to depend on the broader mix of generation contracts and spot-market purchases, as well as transmission, distribution, taxes and other approved charges.
There is also an interesting comparison with Meralco’s 2024 auction
The latest results look particularly notable when placed beside Meralco’s earlier 600-MW baseload auction conducted in August 2024.
In that bidding, San Miguel’s Masinloc Power submitted a total delivered LCOE of ₱5.6015 per kWh for 500 MW, while GNPower Dinginin offered ₱5.7392 per kWh for the remaining 100 MW.
Meralco’s official abstract of bids from that auction showed a reserve LCOE price of ₱7.2609 per kWh.
That makes MPGC’s latest ₱5.3573 offer and Sual’s ₱5.4357 proposal numerically lower than the two successful price levels seen in the 2024 auction.
Still, the comparison comes with a warning: the contracts cover different delivery periods and were priced under different market, fuel and financing conditions, so the figures are useful as context rather than a perfect apples-to-apples measure.
Another Sual deal shows why contract terms matter
Sual Power has already been aggressive in Meralco auctions this year.
In February 2026, Sual submitted a much lower ₱4.2955-per-kWh offer for a separate 200-MW Meralco baseload requirement.
That contract, however, was structured for a different procurement requirement and a substantially shorter four-year term, making direct comparisons with the new 15-year agreement potentially misleading.
Long-term power agreements must account for risks stretching across many years, including operating costs, fuel-market movements and financing conditions.
Why Meralco wants the 600 MW locked in years ahead
The latest procurement is designed to secure baseload electricity well before the capacity is actually needed.
Under the timetable reported by Meralco, an initial 300 MW is expected to begin supplying the utility by February 26, 2028, with another 300 MW scheduled from February 26, 2029.
The resulting power supply agreements would run for 15 years.
The procurement began after Meralco obtained a Certificate of Conformity from the Department of Energy following an extended review of the proposal. The auction was also structured as technology-neutral, allowing generators meeting the required technical and commercial standards to compete.
For Meralco, securing supply several years in advance provides greater visibility over the electricity available to serve customers while reducing its exposure to having to procure large portions of demand from shorter-term or potentially more volatile sources.
But San Miguel and Aboitiz have not won the contracts yet
This is the most important qualification in the story.
MPGC, Sual and GMEC currently have the lowest—and therefore possible best—bids. They have not yet completed the entire award process.
Meralco’s Bids and Awards Committee for Power Supply Agreements must first conduct a post-qualification evaluation of the prospective suppliers.
The committee will then submit its recommendations to the Meralco board of directors, which must approve the winning suppliers before Notices of Award can be issued.
Even after that, the resulting 15-year power supply agreements must be submitted to the Energy Regulatory Commission for review and approval before implementation.
That leaves several opportunities for the final outcome, contract conditions or implementation timetable to change.
Why this bidding matters beyond three power companies
The contest is more than a corporate battle between some of the Philippines’ biggest energy groups.
A 15-year agreement locks in a significant block of electricity supply extending well into the 2040s. Decisions made during the procurement process could therefore affect Meralco’s generation portfolio—and potentially the cost structure faced by millions of consumers—for years.
The initial numbers give San Miguel and Aboitiz a clear advantage.
But until post-qualification is completed, Meralco’s board signs off and the ERC approves the resulting contracts, the lowest bids remain exactly that: the leaders of the race, not yet the final winners.
And with hundreds of megawatts and billions of pesos in future electricity purchases potentially at stake, what happens after the bidding may ultimately matter just as much as who submitted the lowest number.
WWC ONE MEDIA MJE
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