The average price of electricity in the wholesale electricity spot market (WESM) has doubled in May from April to P7.72 per kilowatt hour (kWh), the highest for the year, the Independent Electricity Market Operator of the Philippines (IEMOP) said April average was P3.85 per kWh.
IEMOP said warmer temperatures as well as lower available power supply levels due to generator outages pushed both price and demand.
It said as high prices in the WESM were sustained, the secondary price cap was imposed from May 4 to 7 and from May 20 to 22. The cap is a price-mitigating mechanism imposed to limit persistent high market prices.
The figures collated by the IEMOP are only for the Luzon and Visayas grids as the Mindanao is not yet connected to the WESM
A 3-percent growth in the volume of customer transactions from January to April was tallied by the market operator to 25,129 gigawatt hours (GWh) from last year’s 24,388 GWh.
For the period, electricity generation from coal power plants continued to dominate the mix to around 13,885 GWh or 52.7 percent of the pool followed by natural gas with 6,254 GWh equivalent to 23.8 percent and geothermal with 2,960 GWh or 11.2 percent.
IEMOP said there are 278 members registered in the WESM of which 138 are generation companies, 71 electric cooperatives, 49 directly-connected customers, and 20 private distribution utilities and local government utilities. – Jed Macapagal
