Meralco, the Philippines’ largest electricity distribution utility, unveiled its first “smart grid” plans in 2012. In subsequent years, it announced multiple partnerships with international companies to pursue the digitalization of its network and rolled out two types of two-way communication meters. This chapter seeks to analyze the conditions that fueled local interest for “smart grids” and to understand the consequences of these developments for the utility and for the urban population. More specifically, it situates the advance of digitalization in the context of the Philippines’ deregulation efforts and neoliberal rationality, and shows how its adoption has been uneven, and, more importantly, shaped by local contingencies of the consumption landscape. At a broader level, the article offers a wider understanding of the digitalization process at work in the energy sector by drawing attention to developments in Southern cities where narratives of “smart” technological transitions are challenged by diverse and plural sets of practices.