Prices in the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM) increased by Php2.59 per kilowatt-hour (kWh) to Php 9.01 per kWh for the June 2022 billing period, the Independent Electricity Market Operator of the Philippines (IEMOP) said.
The price increase was mainly attributed to lower supply margins amid planned and forced power plant outages. The National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) declared a series of red and yellow alerts over the Luzon Grid in June.
Due to unplanned outages, the supply margin went down by 258 megawatts (MW).
“While a variety of factors drive changes in electricity market prices, mainly the supply-demand interaction, it is also largely dependent on the offer price of the generators, which considers fuel prices –to which we have observed a surge in prices of oil, coal, liquefied natural gas in the previous weeks,” IEMOP said in a statement.
Due to this, the secondary price cap mechanism (SPC) was set in place 35.17% throughout the June billing period to protect consumers against sustained high WESM prices.
Power demand in the Luzon and Visayas grid went down by 2.43% or 350 MW versus the previous months amid the rainy season. The average demand was recorded at 11,325 MW while the supply was at 15,214 MW.
In the generation mix for the month of June, coal accounted for 60% of the mix with 4,992 gigawatt-hours (GWH), higher than the previous month. Meanwhile, natural gas contribution was slightly lower at 19.3% at 1,578 GWh. Oil-based power plants accounted for 231 GWh or 2.8% of the energy mix.
Power contributions from hydropower slightly increased to 4.5% at 365 GWh, while solar power stood at 160 GWh. Wind power, meanwhile, accounted for 0.2% or 13 GWh.
