MANILA, Philippines — The average price in the wholesale electricity spot market (WESM) eased in April due to lower demand and as power plants on outage resumed operations.
Christian Karla Rica, knowledge management specialist at Independent Electricity Market Operator of the Philippines (IEMOP), said during a virtual briefing that the average WESM prices slipped to P6.26 per kilowatt-hour (kWh) in April from P6.97 per kWh in March.
IEMOP data showed average supply increased by 3.3 percent to 13,995 megawatts (MW) from 13,564 MW as power plants that were on outage resumed operations in the early part of the month.
Also pulling average WESM prices this month is the lower demand, which declined by 1.38 percent to 10,454 MW from 10,600 MW due to a relatively colder weather and the Holy Week break.
Rica added that demand further decreased when people flocked to the province for the annual four-day holiday break, while most businesses were closed in observance of the Holy Week break.
Meanwhile, the same downtrend was also seen on the overall monthly peak demand, which decreased to 13,609 MW from 13,749 MW.
The peak demand of the Luzon decreased to 11,492 MW from 11,617 MW, while that of the Visayas grid increased to 2,156 MW from 2,143 MW.
In terms of settlement results for the March billing period, the spot market transactions accounted for 12.8 percent of all metered quantities or 844 gigawatt-hours (GWh), which is higher than the recorded amount of spot quantities in February.
On the other hand, the Effective Settlement Spot Price (ESSP) for March settled at P7.34 per kWh, higher than P6.51 per kWh in February.
On election day, IEMOP market simulation and analysis manager John Paul Grayda said the power grid is forecasted to have sufficient supply since it is declared a holiday.
“Even with the 1,000 MW outage, projected supply on election day is still sufficient,” Grayda said.
However, tight power supply could be experienced toward the end of May, which could lead to yellow and red alerts raised in the power grid.
“For the last week of May, we can experience thin supply given that we have lower supply,” Grayda said.
“Based on the Department of Energy (DOE) forecasted peak demand of 12,387 MW on May 27, we only have 1,005 MW supply margin, which lower than what is prescribed in the Philippine Grid Code,” Grayda said.
Earlier, Manila-based climate and energy policy group Institute of Climate and Sustainable Cities (ICSC) warned that rotating brownouts are still likely to happen during and after the national elections on May 9 as forced shutdowns of baseload coal power plants continue to occur.
ICSC data showed 12 out of 23 coal plants in Luzon have experienced shutdowns after March 25, and two were still down as of Wednesday.