Electricity rates offered some relief to end-users in November after the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM) recorded an average price drop, driven by declining demand in the country, according to the Independent Electricity Market Operator of the Philippines (IEMOP).

The WESM system price fell by 12.4 percent to ₱3.98 per kilowatt-hour (kWh) in November, from ₱4.54 per kWh in October, Arjon B. Valencia, IEMOP corporate planning and communication manager, said in a Viber message on Wednesday, Dec. 10.

The price reduction was attributed to a slight dip in demand, from 13,881 MW to 13,507 MW, coupled with a modest increase in supply, rising from 19,889 MW to 19,998 MW.

Mindanao posted the sharpest decline, with prices falling 14.9 percent to ₱4.99 per kWh. Luzon followed with an 11 percent decrease to ₱3.52 per kWh, while Visayas registered a 9.6 percent drop to ₱5.29 per kWh.

“In Luzon, prices declined significantly due to higher supply and lower demand,” Valencia said, noting that the market experienced lower energy consumption in the wake of Typhoon Uwan.

“In the Visayas and Mindanao regions, prices also decreased, driven by a larger margin and drop in demand for the former, and supported by higher import volumes coming from the Visayas for the latter.”

To stabilize grid conditions, other market interventions, such as manual load dropping, were executed in Visayas to prevent overloading the Cebu-Mandaue Line 2.

Meanwnile, the share of coal generation declined to 53.6 percent from 56.5 percenr, while natural gas increased its contribution to 19 percent from 16 percent. Renewable energy (RE) held steady at 26 percent share.

Meanwhile, transactions in the reserve market fell, as system-wide procurements dropped to ₱4.1 billion in November from ₱5.68 billion in October, following lower zonal reserve prices across most regions. Zonal reserve prices represent the cost of keeping backup power ready in specific regions to ensure grid stability.