Wholesale electricity prices edged down 1.8 percent in February as a surge in available supply in Luzon offset tighter market conditions in the Visayas and Mindanao, the market operator said Sunday.
The system-wide average electricity price fell to P3.50 per kilowatt-hour (kWh) from P3.56 in January 2026, according to the Independent Electricity Market Operator of the Philippines (IEMOP).
While electricity demand rose 3.1 percent to 12,874 megawatts (MW), the available power supply grew at a faster clip of 4.4 percent to reach 19,992 MW.
“Because supply increased faster than demand, the system maintained a larger buffer of available generation capacity. This improvement contributed to a decline in the system-wide average electricity price,” IEMOP said in a statement.
The price relief was felt most significantly in Luzon, where several power plants returned to service following planned maintenance.
Luzon generation increased by 1,058 MW against a demand rise of 442 MW, pushing the regional price down to P2.69 per kWh from P3.25 in January.
Supply margins in the Visayas and Mindanao regions narrowed due to a combination of plant outages and transmission constraints.
Visayas rates climbed to P5.37 per kWh from P4.24, while Mindanao prices rose to P5.25 per kWh from P4.27.
IEMOP said the Leyte-Luzon transmission interconnection frequently operated near its limit, which restricted the flow of lower-cost power from Luzon to the Visayas. Similar constraints affected the Mindanao-Visayas link.
“Throughout the month, several power plants across Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao experienced both planned maintenance outages and unexpected shutdowns,” IEMOP said.
“Under these tighter supply conditions in certain areas, higher-cost generating units were dispatched more frequently,” it said.
Renewable energy accounted for about 27 percent of total generation during the month. While coal remained the dominant fuel source, its share declined as generation from natural gas, hydro and solar plants increased.
The volume of electricity traded through the spot market rose to 13.7 percent of the total from 13.1 percent in January. Despite the higher volume, the total value of spot market transactions dropped to P10.76 billion from P11.16 billion because of the lower average prices.
Activity in the reserve market also increased in February as a decline in contracted volumes led the grid to rely more heavily on spot market transactions for backup capacity.
