Benjamin Franklin famously observed that nothing is certain in life except death and taxes. If he were living in the Philippines today, he would likely add a third certainty to the list: this government will always find a way to tax the sun.

Driven by the desire to hedge against our notoriously high power rates, my household decided to embrace the promise of energy independence. We paid entirely out-of-pocket to install solar panels, harnessing the abundant sunshine, reducing our reliance on the grid, and watching our monthly electricity bill shrink.

But recently, we made some frustrating discovery in our utility bill: the more clean energy we generate, the more expensive our remaining grid power becomes on a per-unit basis.

My in-laws, who live in our neighborhood, run a traditional setup. They pull every single kilowatt-hour they need straight from the grid, racking up a monthly consumption of 600 kWh. Their effective unit rate sits at ₱15.51 per kWh.

Then there is my own home, where my wife and I converted our roof into a private micro-power plant. Through our own capital investment, we generated 932 kWh of clean electricity straight from the sun last month. We directly consumed a portion of it and sent the surplus back to the grid. As a result, we only needed to buy 471 kWh from the utility provider. (We still need to import electricity at night when the sun is down, or during the day when the sky is overcast).

On paper, we did well. It is a good investment, relieving us of the stress of very high power rates while offsetting carbon emissions—all achieved without a single peso of government subsidy. Yet, when the electric bill arrives, our calculated unit price for that imported electricity jumps to ₱15.70 per kWh, making our grid power strictly more expensive than my in-laws’.

To illustrate: my in-laws consumed a total of 600 kWh for the entire month and paid only ₱15.51 per kWh, while we, who imported less from the grid at 471 kWh, had to pay a higher rate of ₱15.70 per kWh. Don’t you find that bizarre?

Based on my analysis of our utility bill, the culprit for our higher per-unit price is the regulatory framework introduced by the Energy Regulatory Commission’s (ERC) Resolution No. 15.

Under these rules, government-mandated fees—specifically the Lifeline Subsidy and the Feed-in-Tariff Allowance (which funds utility-scale renewable projects)—are not levied solely on what we actually buy from the grid. Instead, they are calculated based on our home’s gross actual consumption.

Because our total energy footprint—combining our self-generated solar power and grid imports—totals 852 kWh, we are charged at that higher tier, rather than just for the 471 kWh we actually imported.

As a consumer, this is deeply disappointing. My household assumed 100 percent of the financial risk to install these solar panels. State infrastructure did nothing, the utility did nothing, and the sun provided the raw fuel for free. Yet, the mechanism of government still finds a way to financialize that sunshine, penalizing our efficiency by inflating our unit rates.

To be sure, Net Metering programs do offer relief through export credits. Our total out-of-pocket cash expense is drastically lower because we sell power back. But the underlying pricing structure exposes an aggravating reality: the grid always protects its margins, and the state always protects its cut.

As the Philippines pushes for decentralization and privatized green energy solutions, policymakers must decide whether they want to incentivize or bureaucratize progress. For now, our rooftop solar remains a winning financial bet overall, but it also reminds us of an inescapable truth: in this country, even the sun cannot escape the taxman.

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