Tipid Kuryente: How to Save Electricity, 12 Moves Ranked
Most tipid kuryente lists put “unplug your chargers” right next to “replace your aircon,” as if they were the same size of decision. One saves you about three pesos a month. The other saves you fourteen hundred.
So here’s the usual advice, ranked, with the math shown. Every peso figure uses the October 2026 Meralco rate of ₱15.0615/kWh and the average running watts from our appliance wattage table. If you’re outside Meralco, divide your own rate by 15.0615 and multiply whatever is in the table by that. A Biliran household multiplies by 1.26. An Agusan del Norte household multiplies by 0.77.
The ranking
| # | Move | Saves per month | Applies to you if |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Swap 1 HP non-inverter aircon for inverter | ₱1,446 | You run aircon ~8 h/night |
| 2 | Stop leaving the desktop PC on overnight | ₱1,446 | 200 W desktop, on 24/7 |
| 3 | Retire the old second ref | ₱1,301 | There is a ref in the dirty kitchen |
| 4 | Replace 8 incandescent bulbs with LED | ₱1,084 | You still have any incandescent |
| 5 | Swap standard ref for inverter | ₱651 | Your ref is 8 to 10 cu ft, non-inverter |
| 6 | Raise aircon from 20 °C to 25 °C | ₱542 | You sleep at 20 °C |
| 7 | Fan instead of aircon for 2 of 8 hours | ₱488 | You can tolerate the first two hours |
| 8 | Cold showers instead of the water heater | ₱474 | 3,500 W heater, 18 min/day |
| 9 | Shorter showers, same heater | ₱237 | You will not give up hot water |
| 10 | Batch the ironing weekly | ₱142 | You iron daily |
| 11 | Unplug the second router or extender | ₱108 | It runs 24/7 and you forgot it exists |
| 12 | Unplug idle phone chargers | ₱3 | You have been told this matters |
Why the top of the list looks like that
The two ₱1,446 entries come from the same math. A 1 HP non-inverter aircon averages about 1,000 W against an inverter’s 600 W, and over 8 hours a night that 400 W difference adds up to 96 kWh a month. A 200 W desktop left on for 16 extra hours a day also comes to 96 kWh. Same effect on the bill, very different fix: one costs ₱25,000 and the other costs nothing.
Do the free one first.
People don’t believe the old ref until they see the number. A standard 8 to 10 cu ft ref averages 120 W, and unlike an aircon it’s never switched off. That’s ₱1,301 a month, ₱15,616 a year, to keep beer cold in the dirty kitchen. An older unit with worn door seals costs even more. If you can’t bring yourself to get rid of it, at least don’t run two.
Lighting only makes the list if you still use incandescent bulbs. Most homes switched years ago, so skip to line 5 if that’s you. If not: a 60 W bulb costs ₱163 a month at 6 hours a day and the LED that replaces it costs ₱27. Eight bulbs is ₱1,084 a month for maybe ₱1,200 of hardware, which pays back in five weeks and is the highest-return purchase on this page.
How cold should the aircon be?
Each degree colder adds roughly 5 to 10% to what the aircon uses. So going from 20 °C to 25 °C takes somewhere between a quarter and a third off the cooling part of your bill, ₱542 a month using the inverter figures above.
25 °C is comfortable once you’re used to it, and that takes about a week. After that, 20 °C feels freezing. Set it at 25 and give it seven days.
What is not worth your time
Unplugging phone chargers. A modern charger with nothing attached draws well under a watt, which comes to three pesos a month for every charger in the house put together. That’s not zero, and the advice isn’t wrong. It’s just the least useful thing on any tipid kuryente list, and it keeps showing up first because it’s free and feels responsible.
Same with switching the TV off at the wall, which is worth maybe ten pesos, and with debates about unplugging the rice cooker between meals, which are worth about four.
Put that effort into the things worth more than ₱400 instead.
Do this with your own numbers
The ranking assumes an average household, and yours probably isn’t one. You might have three aircons or none, a water heater or just a tabo, a desktop or a laptop that uses 65 W.
Build your actual stack in the appliance electricity calculator, which has all 131 distribution utilities loaded, so it works whether you pay Meralco’s ₱15.06 or CEBECO 2’s ₱15.91. Whatever total it gives you, the moves at the top of this page are the ones that will change it.
If the total still hurts after all twelve, put that number into the solar sizing calculator. Making your own daytime power is the thirteenth move, and the only one that keeps paying more the bigger your bill gets.