Meralco opens 2021 with power rate hike By TED CORDERO, GMA News Published January 8, 2021 11:56am Updated January 8, 2021 9:24pm Customers of the Manila Electric Company (Meralco) will welcome the first month of 2021 with higher electricity rates. On Friday, the power distribution utility announced that after a series of power rate reductions in 2020 totaling P1.39 per kilowatt-hour (kWh), power rates for a typical household will increase by P0.2744 per kWh to P8.7497 per kWh this January from P8.4753 per kWh in December 2020. The power rate increment is equivalent to an increase of around P55 in the total bill of residential customers consuming 200 kWh this month.