Cooler weather pulled down electricity spot prices in July

The prices of electricity on the spot market continued to decline in July as the onset of the rainy season dampened demand, the Independent Electricity Market Operator of the Philippines (IEMOP) reported on Friday.

IEMOP, which operates the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM), said the average cost of electricity traded declined to P5.97 per kilowatt-hour (kWh), 3 percent down from a month ago’s P6.15 per kWh.

WESM is an open market where power producers and distributors trade electricity for additional supply, especially those not covered by bilateral contracts. Rates usually go up during the summer when demand overshoots thin supply.

Data based on the billing period from June 26 to July 25 of this year showed that demand decreased to 13,989 megawatts (MW) from the previous 14,710 MW.

Arjon Valencia, corporate planning and communications manager of IEMOP, had said the decrease in demand could be attributed to the start of the rainy season, when overworked plants usually get relief from relatively cooler weather.

Lower demand compensated for lower supply, which was down 3.9 percent to 18,867 MW from 19,638. Several plants, especially the older plants, have not reached their full capacity during the month in review.

Among the main islands, only Mindanao booked a slight increase in power spot prices at P4.67 kWh, 1.3 percent up from P4.61 kWh a month ago. This, despite its demand declining 4.5 percent to 1,952 MW from the previous 2,044. Supply available to Mindanao also went down to 3,421 MW from 3,457.

“The supply-demand scenario in Mindanao decreased due to some baseload plants that [have] undergone outages. This resulted in a minimal increase in price,” IEMOP said. INQ