THE AVERAGE spot market power price could hit P9 per kilowatt hour (kWh) if the supply constraints in the Visayas grid persist and the impact of the strong Mindanao earthquake worsens.
For May, the Visayas and Mindanao already posted a steep rise in Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM) rates.
In a media briefing on Wednesday, an executive of the Independent Electricity Market Operator of the Philippines (IEMOP) said the scenario was “possible in the next few weeks” if the supply side will not improve.
“Until there are big forced outages, we might be seeing the situation,” said Isidro Cacho, Jr., IEMOP vice-president for trading operations.
He noted that two major coal plants in Mindanao went offline following the earthquake.
IEMOP operates the WESM, an avenue where power is traded between producers and distributors to boost their supply.
For the month of May, the average WESM prices climbed by 38.5 percent to P7.79 per kWh. This, as demand jumped by 9.4 percent to 15,755 megawatts, while supply during the period just inched up by 2.7 percent.
Amid tight power supply, Visayas posted the steepest WESM rate increase surging 81.4% to P10.20 per kWh.
Mindanao likewise saw spot prices go up by 64.8 percent to P9.28 per kWh. Luzon, meanwhile, recorded a 24.8-percent increase to P7.02 per kWh.
Visayas grid back under yellow alert
Meanwhile, the Visayas grid was placed under yellow alert for five hours on Wednesday as three major coal plants remained offline.
In an advisory, the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines said the yellow alert was from 3 p.m. to 8 p.m.
The grid operator said the Visayas has 2,556 megawatts (MW) of available capacity against a peak demand of 2,423 MW.
The grid operator issues a yellow alert when the operating margin falls short of the transmission grid’s contingency requirement.
Government officials earlier said two major coal plants would soon resume operations, while another would return online in August. (Lisbet K. Esmael © Philippine Daily Inquirer)
