The Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM) for Mindanao will be fully operational by the second quarter of 2018, a Department of Energy (DOE) official said.

“Our target is by the second half of next year, WESM Mindanao will be in full commercial operation, and Luzon and Visayas WESMs will migrate already f

rom the 10-minute interval to the five-minute interval. So, sabay-sabay mai-implement ang new market management system sa Pilipinas,” DOE assistant secretary Redentor Delola said in a report.

As soon as the Mindanao WESM becomes operational, there will be a new market management for all the islands, he added.

Delola

said that the department is still undergoing trial operations for the spot market participants.

“What’s lagging behind the schedule is the implementation on the embedded generators and directly connected customers. There are test cases that need to be run yet for the market participants,” he added.

The ERC has also yet to approve how the prices will be computed. Hearings are being conducted on this issue which may last until the end of the year.

“So we’re really looking forward to an approval hopefully by February 2018 for the price determination methodology,” Delola said.

The price determination methodology (PDM) will set the guidelines on how prices in the market will be computed. The DOE is eyeing to have a single market and a single PDM.

The Mindanao region currently has an installed capacity of 3,131 megawatts (MW), but only 2,097 MW is available, Delola said.