Full trading of power reserves delayed
The suspension of trading of power reserves may extend beyond July as the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) said it still needed to assess numerous comments on its proposed price cap.
The regulator received more than 100 comments from the public, which would take time to sort out, according to ERC Chair Monalisa Dimalanta.
“It looks like it will be a long discussion which may impact the timeline … we definitely want the resumption to happen only when we have the offer floor and price cap. We will not resume this without those elements in place,” she told reporters on the sidelines of an event on Wednesday.
The agency earlier targeted to resume the full operations of the reserve market within the month.
Reserves or ancillary services help to ensure balanced frequency and voltage levels in the power system in case a large generating unit fails to operate at its optimal capacity. All power generation companies are allowed to sell their reserves in the “reserves market,” which is integrated in the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market.
The ERC was set to hold a public consultation for the offer floor and price cap on Thursday.
Late last month, it proposed an interim price cap of P19 per kilowatt-hour (kWh), or P19,000 per megawatt-hour, for the reserve market, lower than the Department of Energy’s proposed P32 per kWh.
In March, the ERC ordered the suspension of settlement of amounts in the reserve market as the surge in reserve costs resulted in higher power bills.
The regulator partially lifted the suspension two months after.
