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By Euan Paulo C. Añonuevo, Reporter
THE Energy Regulatory Commission
(ERC) said electricity prices at the spot market have been on the
rise in view of the unusually high demand brought on by the extreme
summer heat.
Without providing figures, the
regulator said it has taken note of the increase in the clearing
price at the wholesale electricity spot market (WESM) brought about
by the inability of available supply to keep up with the surge in
demand these past few days.
“The ERC is looking closely at
the behavior of all participants in the WESM to see to it that no
one takes advantage of the situation and that the supply problem is
addressed at the soonest.” Rodolfo B. Albano Jr., ERC chairman,
said.
Last week, sections of Metro
Manila and nearby provinces suffered rotating brownouts after some
of National Power Corp.’s (Napocor) plants broke down. While
Napocor blamed the four-hour outage on unusually high demand for
electricity, industry sources said the generating company was caught
flat-footed as some of its plants lacked fuel to begin with.
Sources said Napocor is
scrambling to buy higher priced coal for the Pagbilao power plant,
with the state-owned company concluding negotiations for an
emergency coal procurement at an offer price of $84 million per
metric ton, or higher than the prevailing market price of about $68.
Consumers are expected to bear
the brunt of the costly coal transaction as fuel supply is also a
component of the Generation Rate Adjustment Mechanism which is
charged in their electricity bills.
The ERC however warned that it
won’t “allow any rate increase to be charged to the electricity
end-users to reflect any increase in the WESM clearing price unless
it has first scrutinized any application for such rate increase and
determined the reasonableness of such rate.”
The regulatory body said it is
coordinating closely with the Department of Energy, Napocor, Manila
Electric Co., the Philippine Electricity Market Corp. and other
electric utilities to provide an environment of a stable supply of
electricity during the summer.
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