Power-plant operators seek Congress intervention on WESM

PHILIPPINE private power plant operators has asked Congress to look into the continued delay in the turnover of the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM) to the private sector.

Ernesto Pantangco, Philippine Independent Power Producers Association (PIPPA) president, said the group is seeking the intervention of the Joint Congressional Power Commission (JCPC) on the long overdue creation of an independent market operator (IMO).

Under the Electric Power Industry Reform Act of 2001 (EPIRA), an IMO should be in place running the WESM in lieu of the government-supervised Philippine Electricity Market Corp. (PEMC) a year after its commercial operations.

The WESM, which was created by the EPIRA, is a market where power suppliers and customers may trade their electricity requirements, giving them an alternative to bilateral supply contracts.

“As an overseer of the EPIRA implementation, JCPC should take a look at the IMO. It should have been created one year after the commercial operations,” Pantangco said.

An IMO, he added, would promote transparency and efficiency in the WESM, which had previously been marred by irregularities allegedly involving government agencies trading in the spot market.

This in turn would give more confidence not only to the private power plant owners but also to foreign investors “to take a look again at investing at the Philippine power industry,” the industry official said.

PIPPA earlier called the Department of Energy’s attention on the creation of the IMO but its pleadings have fallen on deaf ears.

“If there’s a political will, it can be done. The model for privatization, for instance, it’s a corporation. If you form an IMO corporation and then you privatize that –that model is very simple already and has been done with Energy Development Corp. and National Transmission Corp. [Transco],” Pantangco said.

PIPPA is a group composed of the country’s independent power producers with a total installed capacity of 9,572 megawatts. Bulk of the private sector’s capacity at 5,837 megawatts, however, are contracted by government-owned National Power Corp. (Napocor) while the remaining are directly contracted by distribution utilities.

State-run Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corp. trades in behalf of Napocor’s contracted capacities at the WESM. — Euan Paulo C. Añonuevo, Manila Times