Electricity prices in the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM) increased in July despite lower supply and demand, according to the Independent Electricity Market Operator of the Philippines (IEMOP).

“Market prices increased to P3.99 per kilowatt-hour (/kWh), a rise from P3.86/kWh in the previous month,” IEMOP said on Wednesday, noting that the uptick was due to outages of cheaper power plants in Luzon and limited power flows between grids.

Prices edged higher in Luzon “despite higher supply margin due to the limited flow of the HVDC from Visayas to Luzon.” 

In Visayas, IEMOP said prices rose “despite lower supply and demand because of the decrease in supply margin and limited flow from Mindanao due to the outage of Lala-Dumanjug Lines 1 and 2.”

Mindanao also posted higher prices as “coal plants such as FDC units, GNPK units, STEAG units and SMC units were on outage, which led to high-cost generators clearing the market,” the operator added.

The Effective Spot Settlement Price climbed to P4.17/kWh in July from P4.05/kWh in June, even as spot market volume dropped to 13.5 percent of total traded quantity from 18.6 percent.

Reserve market prices were mixed, with Luzon seeing a drop across all reserve types except dispatchable reserves, which more than doubled in market value to P545 million. 

In Visayas, most reserve prices declined except dispatchable reserves, which rose to P562 million. Mindanao’s total reserve market value increased, driven by higher contingency reserves despite lower regulation reserve prices.

As of the end of July, IEMOP data showed renewable energy accounted for 24 percent of total generation in July. 

The share of natural gas rose to 21 percent from 19 percent in the previous billing period. Coal’s contribution fell to 54.1 percent from 57.5 percent, while solar dipped to 3.3 percent from 3.8 percent. 

Oil-based generation held steady at 0.4 percent. Hydro output climbed to 10.5 percent from 7.8 percent, boosted by rains brought by typhoons and the southwest monsoon.