The Independent Electricity Market Operator of the Philippines (IEMOP) said average demand and price of electricity in the wholesale electricity spot market (WESM) increased in June from May.
Yet the level is still far lower than a year ago.
“What we observed is that forecast demand for 2020 will not materialize anymore as we’ve seen lower actual consumptions compared to previous year. The forecast (for) 2021 will be reset to a level that is less than 2020. The take-off point for 2021 could be 2019 levels,” said Robinson Descanzo, IEMOP trading operations head and acting chief operating officer, in a virtual briefing over the weekend.
Peak demands in Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao last year were at 11,344 MW; 2,224 MW; and 2,013 MW. Meanwhile, forecast demand of the three grids for this year were at 12,285 MW; 2,419 MW and 2,278 MW, respectively.
Descanzo said based on preliminary settlement data, average WESM power supply in June went up 4 percent to 13,794 megawatts (MW) from 13,245 MW in May while peak demand improved by 9 percent to 12,611 MW from 11,567 MW.
Average demand grew by 9 percent to 10,174 MW from 9,304 MW as effective spot settlement prices (ESSP) increased by 48 percent to P3.25 per kilowatt hour (kWh) from P2.19 per kWh in May.
Descanzo attributed the higher ESSP last month to the lifting of the enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) in more areas in the country in June.
“Demand in June is also higher because of the lifting of ECQ and general community quarantine in most areas which enabled some establishments to resume operations. Also, a main driver in the increase in demand are price spikes experienced particularly in the second week of June when numerous generation companies also went on outage apart from the peak demand,” Descanzo said.
Yet, ESSP in June 2019 is 63 percent higher than June 2020 figures at P8.78 per kWh.
