By MYRNA M. VELASCO
Despite too much hard work already poured out to bring to fruition the establishment of the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM), slippage remains in its commercial operation because of the skidding action of the Energy Regulatory Commission’s (ERC) on bids for approval of the pricing schemes and market fees to govern trading in the electricity spot market.
The ERC scheduled new rounds of public hearings on the Philippine Electricity Market Corporation’s (PEMC) application for the spot market’s Price Determination Methodology (PDM) last January 24; but proceedings have to be suspended allegedly for lack of preparations by involved parties, and it was assumed that this ostensibly included even some at the regulatory body.
The PDM hearings have been reset to January 31; while those on trading fees are tentatively set February 14 to 18 this year.
Given recent developments on flagging actions on much-needed regulatory rulings for the WESM’s commercial operation, industry stakeholders are putting forward an ardent call on ERC to get its mandate done sooner and of course, judiciously.
At this juncture, the ERC is reminded that the electricity spot market is an important and critical component of the policy reforms envisioned for the domestic power industry under the Electric Power Industry Reform Act (EPIRA).
The entire industry’s hard work for the its creation does not just entail spilling over too much ink to set in place the protocols, manuals and rules that will steer its operations, they said, adding that the WESM has to operate in a little while as targetted, so its fortitude as ‘alternative market’ can finally be put to real test.
While at this, PEMC president Lasse A. Holopainen stressed that he can just see it auspicious that the ERC has finally set the dates for the public hearings on the spot market’s pricing methodology; and he expects that proceedings would finally sail smoothly all the way through, so that regulatory approvals can be rendered soonest.
For now, the PEMC chief executive cannot promise much on when the WESM would finally be on commercial operation, saying that "we apologize that we cannot, at this time, give a firm date for start of operations as we cannot predict the outcomes of said ERC hearings."
It would be noted that the filing for PDM was first done in 2004; and the ERC ruled that it needed some more information on key concerns, such as market sustainability measures, WESM Rule amendment on overriding constraints, manual on must-run units and audit certificates, among others — requirements which were mostly tied to the successful conclusion of the power pool’s Trial Operations Program (TOP) that just culminated recently.
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