MANILA, Philippines - Energy Secretary Jose Rene Almendras has set a new target for the full implementation of the wholesale electricity spot market (WESM) in the Visayas, deferring the earlier September target to the end of this year.
“Maybe towards the end of the year,” he said, adding that they want to assure that the grid is ready before they proceed with the power spot market trading.
“The grid has to be ready, metering has to be ready, and a few things have to be ready,” he pointed out.
“The Visayas (power) supply will be improving in a few months. So for the Visayas, it might be the best time, as a matter of fact, to implement WESM. When all these generation capacity comes in, this will be beneficial to the distribution utilities and electric cooperatives,” he added.
Philippine Electricity Market Corp. (PEMC) president Melinda Ocampo admitted that almost all the electric cooperatives in the Visayas have raised concerns that power prices would soar once electricity starts trading at Visayas WESM due to lack of stable supply of power in the region.
“We received opposition from the electric cooperatives in the Visayas. They are afraid that electricity prices will go up,” she said.
Ocampo noted that the Visayas-based ECs are wary of the impact of the commercial operations of WESM in the provinces targeted by the trading scheme.
The PEMC chief, however, said the apprehension of the ECs are caused mostly by the lack of information on the operation of WESM.
“We are now preparing a communication plan just to be able to laymanize our operations. Because whenever you hear the word WESM, it always connotes an increase in price. We would like to erase that,” she said.
She said they would also try to discuss with the ECs their proposal to limit to 10 percent what they would trade in the WESM Visayas.
“They want 90 percent of the bilateral contracts in order for them to endorse the operation of WESM in the Visayas,” she said.
For his part, Iloilo Electric Cooperative (Ileco) 1 general manager Wilfred Billena argued that the government should first assure adequate supply of power before proceeding with the full commercial operation of WESM in the islands.
“We are not against the spot market but it’s a question of timing.Why not put it in time when the baseload plant that we contracted starts operations by March next year,” he said.
The EC official said if there would be no reserve available in the Visayas, WESM will have to source from the gross pool composed of diesel and gas turbine power plants which costs between P11 to P25 per kilowatthour.