The Market Monitor Minding the Nation's Business
The Department of Energy (DOE) has approved the revised rules for the electricity spot market that that expanded the authority of technical committee of the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM) to detect incidences of violation of trading rules and distortion to the spot market, whether intended or not.
The DOE, in an April 12 circular, amended the WESM Rules Clause 1.7.2, under Responsibilities of the Technical Committee, to read “1.7.2 Responsibilities of the Technical Committee, from time to time as necessary and appropriate and whenever the PEM Board directs, shall: (a) Monitor technical matters relating to the operation of the spot market.” In the last quarter of 2013, prices of electricity spiked due to the supposed maintenance shutdown of major power plants supplied with fuel from the Malampaya natural gas plant.
It was found during investigations made later on regarding the surge in consumer electricity bills that some form of collusion happened among power producers that resulted in the arti-ficially high electricity rates.
At that time, the electricity spot market did not have the authority to intervene in the trading of electricity.
The technical committee refers to the committee whose members are appointed by the board of the Philippine Electricity Market Corp. (PEMC), a non-stock, non-profit public-private partnership that governs the WESM, to monitor and review technical matters under and in relation to the WESM rules, the Grid Code and Distribution Code, the DOE said.
On September 15, 2015, the proposed amendments that grants the technical committee additional authority was received by the DOE, and these proposals underwent a series of meetings conducted by the Rules Change Committee established by the WESM Rules.
The DOE received the proposed amendments for final approval in February. The technical committee, thus, was now given the authority to conduct technical reviews and studies on power-plant technical issues, transmission technical parameters, metering technology and metering data, information technology, and other matters of technical nature involving any WESM par-ticipants. RIZA LOZADA