The Philippine Electricity Market Corp. is awaiting advice from the Department of Energy on the final Visayas launch date of the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market, where suppliers and buyers can trade electricity as a commodity.

We have achieved technical readiness, we await advice from the DOE, said Mario Pangilinan, PEMC executive vice president, in a statement.

The Philippine Electricity Market board, the governing body of the WESM, already certified on Feb. 22 the technical readiness of the electricity bourse to begin commercial operations in the Visayas.

WESM, which originally set its Visayas launch on Jan. 26, delayed the opening to give participants more time to complete registration and test their market trading interface systems.

Pangilinan said the DOE will also look into the level of competitive arrangements in the Visayas and other considerations to ensure that the market functions as intended and the consumers are protected.

PEMC president Lasse Holopainen said in the statement all electricity generators in the Visayas have signed up for participation in the WESM, but  there is  lack of direct buyer participation due to recurring issues on the existing power contracts.

For the Cebu-Negros-Panay grid, 97 percent of the peak demand is covered by bilateral contracts between generators and distribution utilities.

Holopainen said in some ways, this may be beneficial in the short-term as this ensures the consumers are protected from price spikes during the early days of the market.

Late last year,  PEMC said it had registered 37 trading participants, including 14  generators,  23  distribution utilities, rural electric cooperatives, and industrial and commercial customers.*NLG

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