More customers sourced power from the wholesale electricity spot market (MWESM) as prices plummeted to six-year lows in January, based on data from the Philippine Electricity Market Corp. (PEMC).

In a statement yesterday, PEMC said effective settlement spot prices (ESSPs) at the WESM plunged to P1.90 per kilowatt-hour (kwh) for the January billing period, the lowest since January 2011.

ESSPs refer to the average prices paid by wholesale customers for energy purchased from the spot market.

The resulting prices resulted in customer confidence, thereby augmenting their supply sourced from the WESM wherein wholesale customers sourced 23 percent of their electricity requirements from the electricity bourse for the January 2017 billing period.

PEMC said this was the highest percentage customers sourced from WESM since December 2006.

“The result (of the drop in prices) is how much was bought at the market, that’s the highest spot quantity…we believe that shows competitive pricing being given by WESM,” PEMC corporate planning division manager Isidro Cacho said in a briefing yesterday.

Over the past three years, WESM prices have been steadily declining – from P5.58 per kwh in 2014, P4.46 per kwh in 2015 and P3.33 per kwh in 2016, PEMC data showed.

The decline in prices was due to the notable market reforms and developments that ushered in transparency and competition in the electric power industry, Cacho said.

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