Mindanao residents and businesses can now enjoy more reasonable electricity prices with the launching of the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM) on the island, an official said Monday.
Department of Energy (DOE) Secretary Raphael Lotilla, in an interview, said the establishment of the power spot market “translates into more reasonable prices, especially for Mindanao right now.”
President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. led the ceremonial launching in Malacañang of the WESM in Mindanao, which he expects to prop up investments and economic activity in the region, particularly in manufacturing and other energy-intensive industries.
“Well, this means a lot for the people of Mindanao because now there is a Spot Market where the excess capacity in Mindanao plants can be sold, and so they can source part of their supply from this excess capacity,” according to Lotilla.
And once Mindanao becomes interconnected with Visayas and eventually Luzon, the rest of the country can benefit from the excess power capacity from the southern Philippine island, the DOE chief pointed out.
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.
It strengthens market competition and reduces entrepreneurship barriers, and the presence of an organized electricity market provides assurance to investors.
At the same time, transparency in market data enables them to make well-informed business decisions.
Republic Act (RA) No. 9136 provided for the establishment of the WESM, with the Independent Electricity Market Operator of the Philippines (IEMOP) acting as the Independent Market Operator (IMO) of the WESM.
The commercial operations of WESM in the Luzon and Visayas grids started on June 26, 2006, and December 26, 2010, respectively.
Among the benefits of the establishment of WESM in Mindanao are enabling uncontracted power plants to sell electricity, preparing for import and export of electricity, improving the reliability of supply in the main grid, ensuring a level playing field, and facilitating the implementation of policy mechanisms currently available only to the Luzon and Visayas grids. #
