Power spot price dropped 18.6% in Jan
The cost of power traded at the spot market dropped by 18.6 percent month-on-month in January amid improved supply margins, according to the Independent Electricity Market Operator of the Philippines (IEMOP).
Based on data released on Wednesday, IEMOP said that the average rate at the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM) fell to P3.56 per kilowatt-hour (kWh) from P4.38 per kWh in December last year.
IEMOP operates the WESM, a platform where electricity is traded between producers and distributors that need additional supply.
For the billing period covering Dec. 26 to Jan. 25, the amount of available supply shrank by 5.3 percent to 19,152 megawatts (MW) from 20,233 MW a month earlier.
Demand also decreased by 7.1 percent to 12,492 MW from 13,440 MW.
Both the Visayas and Mindanao grids logged a significant reduction in WESM rates.
Isidro Cacho Jr., IEMOP vice president for trading operations, said this was “good news for WESM participants in the Visayas and Mindanao.”
Mindanao, in particular, recorded the biggest cut at 45.5 percent to P4.27 per kWh from December’s P7.82 per kWh.
This happened as demand went down 3.8 percent, while supply went up by 8.4 percent.
Also, the Visayas grid saw a 41.2-percent drop in rates, which settled at P4.24 per kWh from P7.22 per kWh.
The Luzon grid booked an increase of 9 percent, with the average price reaching P3.25 per kWh from P2.98 per kWh.
In terms of system-wide power generation mix, coal still dominated with a share of 58.7 percent.
Renewable energy came second with 27 percent, natural gas with 13 percent and oil-based generation with 0.5 percent.
As the hotter months approach, Cacho remains confident of a better power supply situation with more renewables coming online.
“Hopefully, [the summer months] won’t be like what we experienced in 2024, when we had extreme heat that really caused demand to spike—so much so that we had numerous yellow alerts and red alerts,” he said.
