US firm offers to set up electricity spot mart in RP

US-based Apex has signified a keen interest to participate in the formation of the country’s wholesale electricity spot market, a government official said.

In an interview, Coordinating Council for Private Sector Participation (CCPSP) executive director Noel Eli B. Kintanar said an Apex team went to their office three months ago to express plans to help the government run the first electricity spot market. CCPSP, formerly Coordinating Council of the Philippine Assistance Program (CCPAP) is a government agency tasked to coordinate and monitor private sector participation; formulate and recommend policies and guidelines that will ensure transparent and expeditious implementation of PSP programs and projects of the government.

The Department of Energy (DOE) is mandated to create a wholesale electricity spot market under a provision in the Electric Power Industry Reform Act (EIRA), which was passed in June this year. The DOE is required to establish the said spot market within one year after the passage of the bill.

Kintanar said Apex is a private firm operating one of two California-based electricity spot markets. He said this company is not the one responsible for the California power crisis. "There are two spot markets in California, one being run by the government and the other by the private sector," he said.

The DOE has hired a consultant to study the possibility of the government initially operating the electricity spot market on its own with the help of an independent market operator (IMO).

"They are working out an interim arrangement wherein the government will run the spot market for three years to test if the implementing rules and regulations (IRR) that they have drawn will work," the CCPSP official said, adding that the DOE wants to ensure that the California power crisis will not happen in the Philippines. – Donnabelle Gatdula