WESM prices on the decline this month

MANILA, Philippines — Average electricity spot market prices have declined in the early part of November after two successive months of increases.

In a virtual press briefing, the Independent Electricity Market Operator of the Philippines (IEMOP) said average wholesale electricity spot market (WESM) prices dropped to P8.08 per kilowatt-hour (kWh) as of Nov. 13 from P9.22 per kWh in October.

IEMOP said the power bourse has witnessed so far this month a lower demand of approximately 10,083 megawatts (MW),   leading to a greater margin and lower price average price.

“Ample supply margins with a lesser frequency of price spikes were recorded in the first half of November,” said Christian Karla Rica, assistant manager for knowledge management services at IEMOP.

In October, spot prices in the WESM encountered a slight increase at P9.22 per kWh, 1.10 percent higher than September’s P9.12 per kWh.

Outages by major coal, geothermal, oil-based, and natural gas plants remained to be one of the factors behind the movement, and generators with higher offer prices were dispatched to make up for the needed energy requirements.

Average supply for October went down compared to the previous month to 13,478 MW, while demand increased to 10,810 MW.

The average margin last month dropped by 9.86 percent and led to the imposition of the secondary price cap mechanism, a mitigating measure to safeguard consumers against sustained high WESM prices.

IEMOP said the mechanism was able to cushion the prices for 52 percent and 53 percent of the time for Luzon and Visayas, respectively.

Spot market transactions for October accounted for 13.3 percent or 969 gigawatt hours (GWh), higher than the amount of spot market transactions in September at 12.1 percent or 889 GWh.

The IEMOP is mandated to pursue the WESM objective to have a transparent, fair, competitive, and reliable market for the trading of electricity throughout the country.