Electricity demand in Luzon, the country's main economic center, peaked in March and surpassed the pre-pandemic demand levels for the same month, largely due to the start of dry season and the wider re-opening of the economy, the Independent Electricity Market Operator of the Philippines (IEMOP) reported.
Likewise, settlement prices at the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM) climbed to P6.97 per kilowatt hour (kWh) this March from the February supply month’s level of P6.19 per kWh.
According to IEMOP, peak demand for power in Luzon in March already hit 11,617 megawatts, higher by roughly 1,500MW from pre-pandemic level of 10,109MW in a comparative month in 2019.
Notably, demand in 2020 for the same month was at 11,065MW and 10,487MW in March 2021. IEMOP further noted that the average demand level for March supply month had been at 10,600MW.
Year to date, the entire country registered peak demand of 13,749MW last arch 23 or 300MW higher than the13,450 MW peak demand pre-pandemic time in 2019.
Prior to last week’s forced outages of power plants, IEMOP stated that supply levels had been generally sufficient throughout the entire month of March.
“The increasing demand was accompanied by sufficient supply levels which amounted to 13,456MW or 5.41-percent greater than that of February 2022. This is mostly due to the resumption of operations by the generators that were on outage at the earlier periods of the year,” IEMOP emphasized.
Nevertheless, the company has been echoing warning in the power sector supply chain that prices in the spot market will likely climb higher on the duration of the summer months; especially as power plants continue to suffer forced outages due to various technical causes.
“As the country prepares for the dry season and the upcoming national and local elections, IEMOP will closely monitor the market results in line with its commitment to provide transparent, efficient and reliable market solutions and services that will provide a brighter future for every Filipino household,” the spot market operator said.
But when asked on which trader-generating companies have been raking in profits when prices surge, IEMOP stressed that those information are “being kept confidential”, hence, the public cannot be apprised as to the gainers on WESM price spikes.