LPG or Electric: What Cooking Actually Costs in Davao

Every “LPG versus electric” article you can find in the Philippines makes the same move: it asserts a percentage — gas is cheaper, or induction is, take our word for it — and skips the arithmetic. The trouble is that the answer depends entirely on your electricity rate, and Davao’s just moved. So instead of asserting, this guide derives the number from the live Davao Light rate and a measured efficiency figure, and shows every step. The conclusion has real conditions attached. You should be able to see them.

The one number that decides it

Cooking cost comes down to a single comparison: how much usable heat you get from a peso of LPG versus a peso of electricity. Two inputs settle it, and both are sourced rather than assumed.

The first is how much energy an LPG cylinder holds. Liquefied petroleum gas carries about 47.3 megajoules per kilogram of usable heat, the international default value, so an 11 kg cylinder holds roughly 144 kilowatt-hours of heat once you convert the units. The second is efficiency, and this is where most guides cheat. A gas flame wraps around the pan and loses a lot of its heat to the kitchen air; an induction hob puts its energy almost entirely into the pot. A US Department of Energy lab test measured both cooktop types against the same cooking task, and gas needed about 2.24 times the energy input that induction did. That ratio is measured, not claimed — which is the whole point, because “gas is 40% efficient” numbers circulate everywhere and are sourced nowhere.

Put the two together. One cylinder’s 144 kilowatt-hours of heat, delivered on induction at 2.24 times the efficiency, is about 64.5 kilowatt-hours of electricity. At the current Davao Light residential rate of ₱12.90/kWh (August 2026) that is roughly ₱844 a month. So ₱844 is the magic number: it is the price at which one cylinder of LPG costs exactly the same to run as the induction cooking it replaces.

One honest wrinkle sits on that 2.24, and it is load-bearing enough to state up front. Other figures circulate. The thermal efficiencies commonly quoted for the two — induction around 80%, an open gas burner around 50% — imply a smaller ratio, closer to 1.6, and at 1.6 the arithmetic tips the other way and LPG wins. Those percentages measure a different thing from the DOE test: they describe how much of the burner’s heat reaches the pot, while the DOE figure measures the total energy each cooktop needs to finish the same cooking. The task-based ratio is the better input, which is why it is used here. But the gap between 1.6 and 2.24 is exactly the gap between “LPG is cheaper” and “induction is cheaper,” so treat the ratio as the hinge and read the sensitivity table below as the real answer, not the single headline.

What a tank actually costs, and the honest gap

The Davao price is published, monthly, by the Department of Energy’s Mindanao Field Office in its Region XI LPG price monitoring, brand by brand (correction, 5 September 2026: this paragraph used to say the DOE monitored Metro Manila only, which was wrong). For 1 August 2026 an 11 kg cylinder in Davao City ran ₱1,244 (RCG) to ₱1,669 (EC Gas), with Solane at ₱1,390–1,660, Petron Gasul ₱1,343–1,510, Phoenix ₱1,272–1,480 and Pryce ₱1,325–1,450; the common price was ₱1,335 and the brand average ₱1,391.59, down from a ₱1,688.51 average in April. Metro Manila’s band the same day was ₱987.50 to ₱1,498.00, which confirms the import-and-haul premium rather than standing in for the Davao figure. The ₱999 refill that circulated in Mindanao was a ten-day vendor promotion, not a standing price, and quoting it as “the Davao price” is exactly the trap this guide is built to avoid.

Read against real prices, induction wins across the board today. At the cheapest Davao cylinder the DOE recorded in August 2026, ₱1,244, LPG costs ₱400 more a month than the induction cooking it would replace; at the common price of ₱1,335 the gap is ₱491. Even the promo ₱999 loses by ₱155.

Where the answer flips, because it does

This is not “switch to induction, case closed”, and a guide that told you so would be hiding the conditions. Two things move the break-even, and both are live in Davao right now.

The first is the electricity rate. The ₱844 tie point is computed at today’s rate, and that rate is elevated: Davao Light is spreading a generation-cost spike over several months rather than passing it through at once, so the number you are cooking against is partly deferred cost. Run the same arithmetic at the pre-surge rate earlier in 2026 and the break-even cylinder drops to around ₱668 — and at that rate, LPG at any real price was the cheaper way to cook. The conclusion is a creature of the current tariff.

The second is your burner. The 2.24 efficiency ratio is a lab median, and Philippine kitchens vary.

What this does not price

The running cost is one line of the decision, and honesty means naming the rest. This guide does not price the induction hob and the induction-compatible pans you would have to buy, which is real money at the start. It does not price the plain fact that LPG works when the grid does not — in a franchise area running deferred generation charges and the odd interruption, that is not a footnote. And it does not model how you would actually cook, since induction boils faster and changes habits. What it gives you is the fuel arithmetic, done in the open, with the two conditions that would overturn it stated rather than buried.

Before you decide

The electricity side of this is priced at the same live rate everywhere on the site: the guide to what every appliance costs to run in Davao puts a kettle, a rice cooker and an oven against the same tariff, and the note on the 2026 Davao Light rate surge explains why the number the break-even is computed against is elevated right now. To run your own kitchen’s numbers, the electricity bill calculator prices any wattage at the current rate.