By Danessa Rivera (The
Philippine Star) | Updated January 11, 2016 - 12:00am
The review would mainly be focused
if the secondary cap and the P32 per kwh caps are sufficient and would depend
on the revenue of the investors, Philippine Electricity Market Corp. (PEMC)
president Melinda Ocampo noted. Philstar.com/File
MANILA, Philippines - The price caps
imposed on the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM) have been made
permanent, but would reviewed regularly to prevent another round of price
spikes.
The WESM Tripartite Committee
decided to maintain the P32 per kilowatt-hour (kwh) price ceiling and the
secondary price cap of P6.245 per kWh, Philippine Electricity Market Corp.
(PEMC) president Melinda Ocampo said.
The WESM Tripartite Committee is
composed of the Energy department, the energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) and
the PEMC.
“Actually, the price caps were made
permanent, but there is a colatilla that there will be a continuing review.
There is a provision that there will be a review so depending on the situation,
they will study it,” Ocampo said.
The review would mainly be focused
if the secondary cap and the P32 per kwh caps are sufficient and would depend
on the revenue of the investors, she noted.
The price cap is the highest offer
that sellers could give when they sell their electricity to the market.
These price caps were imposed by the
ERC in 2014, after prices at the WESM soared by P4.16 per kwh in December 2013
due to the month-long Malampaya natural gas field shutdown in late 2013.
Originally at P62 per kwh, the WESM
price ceiling had been reduced to P32 per kwh. Meanwhile, the power regulator
also put in place in May 2014 a secondary price cap at the spot market to
cushion consumers from possible power rate hikes.
These price ceilings were supposed
to have ended last September but was extended to get comments from industry
players for the planned implementation of a new cap.
In August 2015, the ERC said it is
studying the implementation of a single market threshold on the electricity
spot market aimed to protect consumers from sudden electricity rate spikes and
at the same time ensure returns to investors, replacing the WESM threshold and
the secondary cap.
No comments:
Post a Comment