The electricity reserve market, in suspension since March, is seen restored to full commercial operation in July, the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) said Monday.
Its restoration, the ERC said, is timed with cooler climes in the months ahead when power demand is seen moderating and reservoirs in dams across the country are replenished by the return of the wet season.
“It is already on the agenda of the Commission this month so most likely by July, or sooner, we can resume the commercial operation (of the reserves market),” Monalisa Dimalanta, ERC chair, told reporters at the sidelines of a Power Summit hosted by the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Makati City.
Dimalanta said the wet season helps temper power rates at the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market, allowing consumers enough “breathing space” and as long as the major power plants deliver uninterrupted power.
The energy reserves market helps guarantee the delivery of power in the grid by allowing the baseload power providers to maintain sufficient reserve electricity for those times when power demand is highest. Maintaining that margin, however, costs money that adds to the monthly bills of households and commercial customers and thus the need to manage it, the ERC said.
In May this year, however, the ERC partially lifted the suspension of payments to the reserve power providers to allow for the partial recovery of costs for trading transactions billed in March.
This allowed the reserve power providers to recover P1.7 billion or 30 percent of the total P5.7 billion owed them.
The market has yet to charge the balance of P4 billion from consumers pending ERC approval.
