Electricity prices at the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market went up slightly in December because of thin supply despite the lower demand.
Preliminary effective spot settlement price at the WESM, the trading floor of electricity, reached P8.796 per kilowatt-hour in December, up from P8.62 per kWh in November.
ESSP refers to the effective rate paid by customers for WESM transactions for each billing month.
Data from the Independent Electricity Market Operator of the Philippines showed that the average power supply in December declined to 12,855 megawatts from 13,691 MW in November.
Power demand was also lower in December at 10,167 MW, compared to 10,355 MW in November.
This indicated that the average supply margin was lower in December at 2,717 MW than 3,336 MW in November.
Grid operator National Grid Corp. of the Philippines declared yellow and, in some instances, red alerts on Dec. 1, 5 and 6 because of lower generating capacity.
IEMOP earlier said that electricity demand in 2022 saw “normalcy in terms of its growth as compared to its previous levels in 2020 and 2021, where the effect/s of the pandemic is extremely felt.”
“On average, it has grown by 3.6 percent versus the 2019 levels. In terms of peak demand values, the demand has grown by 8 percent from the recorded peak demand in 2019,” it said.
IEMOP said WESM prices in 2022 also recorded a significant increase brought about by the soaring prices of imported fuel in the global market.