The Independent Electricity Market Operator of the Philippines (IEMOP) has reported a decline in the initial average price of electricity in the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM) experienced last month.
In a report by Philippine Star, preliminary data indicated that WESM rates across the country decreased, mainly due to reduced power demand, which partly balanced the similarly decreased available supply for the month.
For the period from June 26 to July 25, the average electricity rate at the system-wide WESM saw a decline of 3%, sliding from Php 6.15 per kilowatt-hour (kWh) to Php 5.97 per kWh.
Supply also decreased by 3.9%, from 19,638 MW to 18,867 MW, while the demand also received the same result, a decrease of 4.9%, from 14,710 MW to 13, 989 MW.
Additionally, the supply margin, representing the gap between available supply and actual demand, decreased slightly to 4,878 MW compared to 4,928 MW in the previous month.
Meanwhile, the average spot market rate for the Luzon grid also experienced a slump of 0.9%, from Php 5.97 per kWh to Php 5.92 per kWh, with the supply also dropping by 3.8% from 13,860 MW to 13,340 MW.
The grid’s demand dropped by 4.9%, reaching 10,142 MW from 10,664 MW, which led to a slight increase in the supply margin to 3,198 MW, up from the previous month’s 3,196 MW.
Moreover, the average electricity rate in the Visayas region fell by 12.4%, dropping from Php 8.56 per kWh to Php 7.50 per kWh.
This decrease occurred despite a 9.3% reduction in supply, which fell to 2,105 MW from 2,322 MW. Demand also saw a slight decrease of 5.4%, moving down to 1,894 MW from 2,002 MW. This shift led to a supply margin of 211 MW, a decrease from June’s 320 MW.
In contrast, Mindanao experienced a 1.3% increase in the average spot market price, snowballing to Php 4.67 per kWh from Php 4.61 per kWh.
This increase was largely attributed to the forced outages of several baseload power plants. Supply in the region also decreased by 1% to 3,421 MW from 3,457 MW, while demand fell by 4.5% to 1,952 MW from 2,044 MW. As a result, the supply margin in Mindanao widened to 1,469 MW from 1,413 MW.
