Higher prices loom at power spot market

MANILA, Philippines — Higher prices loom at the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM) this month due to the number of outages recorded in the early part of September, the Independent Electricity Market Operator of the Philippines (IEMOP) said.

In a virtual press briefing, IEMOP manager for pricing validation and analysis John Paul Grayda said the market price for September is seen to average at P3 per kilowatt-hour(kwh) as price spikes due to outages were observed earlier this month.

This is higher than the average price of P2.08 per kwh in August.

The IEMOP said it recorded price spikes beginning Sept. 4, the highest reaching P36.11 per kwh on the average during a single interval.

“In total, there were 31 trading intervals with market clearing prices higher than P10 per kwh for the period of Sept. 4-13, 2020,” the IEMOP said.

“Despite the occurrence of price spikes on the said period, the average price still amounted to only P3.64 kwh as of Sept. 13,” it added.

The IEMOP said a decrease in supply level was observed starting Sept. 4, with several generating plants going on scheduled maintenance, a number of notable plants on forced outages, and capacity deration of some power producers.

“Highest outage of 2,945 megawatts was recorded on Sept. 7 on which 1,752 MW are planned outages while 1,193 MW are forced outages,” it added.

Grayda emphasized that the P3 per kwh average price for this month is not yet final as the billing month is set to end on Sept. 25.

Meanwhile, the IEMOP reported that the aggregated Luzon and Visayas system peak demand reached 12,586 MW on Sept. 8,the highest demand recorded since July 2020.

It added that Luzon peak demand of 10,563 MW occurred on Sept. 8, while the Visayas peak demand of 2,099 MW was recorded on Aug. 26.

The IEMOP said the Luzon peak demand of 10,563 MW already exceeded its 2019 peak by three percent.

In terms of customer transaction for 2020, the IEMOP said it has generally dropped as compared to the same period of 2019 which can be attributed to the implementation of the quarantine protocols.

“From a decrease in consumption by 20.7 percent in April year-on-year, electricity use has almost reached 2019 levels with only a 5.3 percent reduction observed in August 2020 compared to the same month last year,” the IEMOP said.