President Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr. is confident that the launching of the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM) in Mindanao will prop up investments and economic activity in the region that would eventually translate to more jobs.
Marcos said this during the ceremonial launching of the WESM in the Mindanao Grid in Malacañang on Monday, Feb. 6.
According to the President, the facility would boost manufacturing and other energy-intensive industries on the island, eventually generating jobs and opportunities for the people.
"Indeed, the presence of WESM in Mindanao and an interconnected and interdependent grid in the country will not only ensure a level playing field in the competitive energy market but will also provide assurance to investors," he said.
"In the long run, WESM will help sustain power generation investments to meet the ever-growing electricity demand," he added.
WESM is a centralized venue for trading electricity for large-scale buyers and sellers. It aims to establish a competitive, efficient, transparent, and reliable market for electricity.
With the integration of the three main grids in the WESM, President Marcos said the country could achieve its goal of having a joint WESM for the entire nation and attaining total capacity for the Philippines' power demands.
He added that Monday's ceremony was an "important step" in rationalizing the nation's power capacity and distribution.
The President likewise hoped that the drop in fuel prices in the world market would lead to lower power costs for industrial users and household consumers.
Mindanao has an electrification rate of 87 percent, and WESM in Mindanao will have a crucial role in the successful operation of the Mindanao-Visayas Interconnection Project (MVIP) as WESM allows efficient transmission and settlement of electricity exchanges.
Mindanao currently has 4,321 megawatts of registered capacity, while its peak demand is only around 2,167 megawatts.
With the establishment of WESM in Mindanao, around 2,000 megawatts of uncontracted capacities can now be sold in the WESM and be dispatched at any given time, supplying to distribution utilities, electric cooperatives, and other end-users when their contracted power plants are not available.
The launching will also affect power pricing, as WESM encourages generators to compete and sell their electricity at a lower price to secure a dispatch schedule.
The government established WESM in Luzon in 2006, making the Philippines the first developing nation in Asia to introduce WESM successfully.
In 2010, WESM in the Visayas was also established.
With the presence of WESM in Mindanao, the President said the country now looks forward to completing the MVIP by end-March this year, which will benefit the people of Mindanao and the Visayas through the transmission of electric power between these islands.