The average electricity prices at the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market declined slightly to P6.21 per kilowatt-hour in May from P6.26 per kWh in April on adequate supply despite increased demand.
The Independent Electricity Market Operator of the Philippines, which runs the WESM, the trading floor of electricity, said Monday the power supply averaged 15,406 megawatts in May, up from 13,995 MW in April.
It said the average power demand also increased to 11,259 MW this month from 10,454 MW in April.
“In spite of these increasing levels in demand, the significant growth in supply was able to offset the scale, through the increase in margin from 3,541 MW to 4,147 MW which provided enough leeway for the decrease in the average spot price of P6.21 per kWh. This is lower by 0.80 percent or P0.05 per kWh than the April 2022 figure,” the IEMOP said in a statement.
It said the increase in the supply level resulted in a more competitive price in the spot market.
“With the supply amounting to 15,406 MW, or a 1,411 MW difference from that of the previous month’s, the 10.08 percent increase led to a greater margin in the power bourse despite the growth in demand of around 7.7 percent or around 805 MW for a total of 11,259 MW,” the IEMOP said.
It attributed the increase in supply to the resumption of the operations of power generators that were on outage in the latter half of April. Most of these power plants were coal and geothermal plants.
The IEMOP said the Department of Energy, through its Energy Task Force Election, stayed on top of the entire demand-supply situation which further paved the way for the ample supply levels during the election period.
The demand level continued to rise at a gradual pace as the economy started to pick up and businesses resumed their operations given the more lenient restrictions on health protocols.
The country encountered remnants of the dry season in the early part of May which forced people to consume more electricity with the increased use of air-conditioning systems.
Alena Mae S. Flores
Data showed that peak demand in Luzon and Visayas reached 14,380 MW in May, a 5.27 percent increase from the same period last year.
“In fact, this figure also managed to surpass the peak demands of the previous years,” the IEMOP said.
It said that in the Luzon grid, peak demand was recorded at 12,103 MW, up by 4.42 percent from a year ago.
The Visayas grid reached its peak demand at 2,285 MW and recorded a 4.96 percent increase year-on-year.