A suspension of the wholesale electricity spot market tempered potential price surges in April 2026, keeping the system-wide average market price at P5.63 per kilowatt-hour (kWh), the Independent Electricity Market Operator of the Philippines (IEMOP) said.
IEMOP trading operations vice-president Isidro Cacho Jr. said the actual rate was significantly lower than the projected P9 to P10 per kWh for the month.
The Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) declared a market suspension effective March 26 in response to a State of National Energy Emergency, implementing modified administered prices to combat rising global fuel costs and supply disruptions.
“The application of modified administered prices helped temper the potential impact of rising fuel costs to the electricity market prices, mitigating price volatility in the WESM,” Cacho said.
Under the emergency measures, coal prices were capped at P6.00 per kWh. This resulted in average generation prices of P5.13 per kWh in Luzon, P5.32 per kWh in Visayas, and P5.50 per kWh in Mindanao.
Despite the mitigation measures, the April price of P5.63 per kWh still represented a 30.6-percent increase from the P4.31 per kWh recorded in March.
IEMOP attributed the rise to hot weather driving higher consumption and a tighter system supply margin of 4,427 megawatts (MW), down from 4,654 MW the previous month.
“So that increase, of course, we know that the weather is hot and of course that drove the use of electricity higher. That also translated to use of different technologies and as you know, in summer, our hydro is lower. But of course, there is our solar, the other RE. So, relatively, things are balanced out,” Cacho said.
Average demand in April rose 7.6 percent to 14,404 MW, while system-wide average supply increased 4.6 percent to 20,819 MW.
Supply margins across all three main grids declined due to higher outage levels and variations in high-voltage direct current flows.
Luzon recorded 21,404.3 MW in forced outages, primarily from coal and natural gas plants. The Visayas saw 5,610.45 MW in forced outages, mostly from solar and geothermal sources, while Mindanao reported 3,556.05 MW in forced outages across various technologies.
Renewable energy accounted for 23 percent of the total generation mix in April. Coal and natural gas shares rose slightly to 58.4 percent and 17 percent, respectively. While solar and geothermal generation increased, hydropower and wind generation saw declines during the summer month.
