Published August 16, 2017, 10:00 PM By Myrna M.
Velasco
With plummeting electricity prices ignited
by intensive market competition, the net income of publicly listed PHINMA
Energy Corporation had suffered deep cuts to P298 million in the first half
from P542 million in the same period last year.
The company, in a disclosure to the
Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) has indicated that “heightened competition and
increasing penetration of must-dispatch variable renewable energy (VRE) have
driven market prices of electricity downward.”
But while it strides through such
transition, PHINMA Energy noted that it has some favorable outcome in terms of
widening the base of its customers in the retail competition and open access
(RCOA) space.
Despite the temporary restraining
order (TRO) handed down by the Supreme Court on the policy, the company said it
was able to corner 14 percent share of the competitive retail electricity
market, making it the largest player in this segment on stand-alone basis,
minus the local retail electricity supplier (L-RES) unit of the country’s
biggest power utility.
It was previously gathered that
PHINMA Energy was able to switch customers for an aggregate capacity of more
than 100 megawatts into the RCOA sphere of the industry’s restructured phase –
and has been keeping its eye on the goal of cornering that 400MW target for
this core of its operations.
It is worth noting that most
generation companies are now anxious of “decimated margins” because contracting
of power as well as spot market exposure had already been significantly pulled
down cost-wise.
The only lever for contracted capacities
would be on guarantee of stable flow of revenue stream – a more predictable
precept compared to high Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM) exposure.
PHINMA Energy, for its part, has
noted that “under the foregoing environment in the industry, the company is
continuously working to manage supply portfolio costs to remain competitive and
is hopeful that more contestable customers will be encouraged to participate
voluntarily in RCOA.”
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