Philippine energy market, fourth quarter 2025

The fourth quarter closed 2025 at 3.0% growth and 4.4% for the year, the slowest in five years. Investment contracted hard, the peso set a record low, the central bank made its fifth cut of the year, and the largest renewable auction to date was awarded.

This edition of our quarterly market brief covers October to December 2025. Compiled in September 2026 from the releases of the time, including the full-year figures published on 29 January 2026. Nothing here is a forecast.

Investment collapsed while consumption held

Real GDP grew 3.0% year on year, bringing 2025 to 4.4%. Household consumption grew 3.8% and government consumption 3.7%. Gross capital formation fell 10.9%, traced to a 41.9% drop in general government construction as infrastructure projects stayed under scrutiny.

Full-year household consumption: 4.6%.

Full-year government consumption: 9.1%.

Full-year gross capital formation: minus 2.1%.

Constant 2018 prices, from the release of 29 January 2026 by the Philippine Statistics Authority.

The peso broke its record

The peso weakened past its previous record on 28 October, closing at 59.13 to the dollar, and ended the year at its weakest, 59.22. The central bank attributed the move to concern over slower growth and expected further easing, and said it intervenes only to smooth swings. The 2025 average was 57.51.

The easing cycle finished at 4.50%

The BSP cut by 25 basis points in October, to 4.75%, against expectations of a hold, and again on 11 December, to 4.50%. Five cuts took 125 basis points off the rate in 2025. Headline inflation was 1.7% in October, 1.5% in November and 1.8% in December, with a 2025 average of 1.7%.

Fuel and spot power stayed cheap

Dubai crude averaged 62.1 dollars a barrel across the quarter and 62.0 in December. Australian thermal coal averaged 109.3 dollars a tonne. IEMOP reported a Luzon average of 3.89 pesos per kilowatt-hour for October and a system-wide average of 4.42 for November, with Luzon at 4.24. The effective average for January to November was 4.32 pesos.

GEA-4 awarded 10,195 MW, none of it dispatchable

On 6 November the Department of Energy awarded the fourth Green Energy Auction: 10,195 MW across 123 projects, 96% of the round target, for delivery between 2026 and 2029.

4,179 MW ground-mounted solar

2,284 MW floating solar

2,518 MW onshore wind

1,189 MW renewable energy with storage

25 MW rooftop solar

No biomass and no waste-to-energy capacity was in the round. Ten gigawatts of variable capacity entered the pipeline and the firm-capacity gap stayed where it was, which is the part of the market developers and technology providers still have to solve.

What it meant for a plant

The year ended with cheap fuel, cheap spot power and cheap money, which is not by itself a case for building. What had changed was the currency. A peso at 59, and a central bank that would not defend it, made imported equipment dearer before any project decision was taken. A site burning a fuel it already controls was insulated from that. A site importing a boiler was not.

If you are weighing a project whose equipment is priced in dollars, or want to know what your own steam cost did through the year, tell us about your site. Earlier and later editions are filed under the quarterly market brief.