THE Independent Electricity Market Operator of the Philippines (IEMOP) announced slightly lower systemwide power rates at the spot market in July amid lower demand.
Preliminary data from IEMOP, operator of the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM), said the system-wide average price declined 3 percent from P6.15 per kilowatt-hour (kWh) in June to P5.97 per kWh in July.
It said demand dropped 4.9 percent to 13,989 megawatts (MW) from 14,710 MW. Available supply during the period was also lower at 18,867 MW from 19,638 MW.
IEMOP said that on a per grid basis, Luzon and Visayas posted decline in average rates while Mindanao spot prices went up.
WESM prices in Luzon declined slightly 0.9 percent to P5.92 per kWh from P5.97 per kWh, as demand also went down by 4.9 percent to 10.142 MW from 10,664 MW. Average supply also declined by 3.8 percent to 13,340 MW from 13,380 MW.
Average spot prices in the Visayas grid posted a bigger decline of 12.4 percent to P7.50 per kWh from P8.56 per kWh.
Power demand in the Visayas went down by 5.4 percent to 1,894 MW in July from 2,002 MW the previous month, while available supply also declined 9.3 percent to 2,105M W from 2,322 MW.
Meanwhile, average spot prices in Mindanao increased 1.3 percent to P4.67 per kWh from P4.61 per kWh even as demand and supply declined.
Mindanao power demand dropped 4.5 percent to 1,952 MW from 2,044 MW while available supply weakened by 1 one percent to 3,421 MW from 3,457 MW.
“The supply-demand scenario in Mindanao decreased due to some baseload plants that had undergone outages. This resulted in minimal increase in price,” IEMOP said.
Distribution utilities and electric cooperatives source a portion of their supply from the WESM.
The Energy Regulatory Commission is reviewing the exposure of DUs and ECs as some of them have 100 percent exposure to the WESM, which caused their rates to skyrocket in June.
