I. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The 38th Status Report on Republic Act No. 9136 titled “Electric Power Industry Reform Act (EPIRA) of 2001” covers the implementation period November 2020 to April 2021. This highlights significant accomplishments, strategies and policies undertaken by the Department of Energy (DOE), the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC), the DOE Attached Agencies as well as other private sector instrumentalities so mandated by the EPIRA.
Following are the significant accomplishments and developments in the power sector through the DOE, its attached agencies and the private sector, as mandated under the EPIRA:
- The Power Sector Assets & Liabilities Management Corporation (PSALM) continued the activities for the privatization of the government’s remaining assets focusing for the report period on the preparations for the 3rd Round of the Negotiated Sale of the Malaya Thermal Power Plant (MTPP) and its underlying Land to be held on 23 April 2021. Similarly, a study through the assistance of the Asian Development Bank is being conducted to determine options in the privatization of Casecnan Multi-Purpose Project (CMP) and CBK Hydroelectric Power Plants (CBK).
- Power demand in 2020 continued to be lower than the 2019 level as non-coincident peak demand was recorded at 15,282 MW, which is 299 MW or 1.9% lower than the previous year level. This decline in demand is attributed to the COVID-19 pandemic, which put the country under different levels of community quarantine beginning 15 March 2020. On the supply side, there was 662.7MW new power generation capacity for grid and off-grid areas that went on commercial operation during the report period, November 2020 to April 2021 (if there was no capacity that went on commercial operation, we can state that the limited and restricted movements of people and materials have affected the timely completion of the power projects despite the support provided by the DOE in the issuance of IATF IDs for local backliners and endorsements to concerned government agencies for the entry of foreign experts).
- The “Advisory on the Moratorium of Endorsements for Greenfield Coal-fired Power Projects in line with Improving the Sustainability of the Philippines’ Electric Power Industry”, was published on 22 December 2020. This directive aims to support and effectively implement policies issued by the DOE with the aim of improving energy sustainability, reliability, and flexibility by: (1) Increasing the Renewable Energy (RE) share in the energy mix; (2) Promoting new technologies; (3) Increasing system flexibility; and (4) Adhering to higher environmental standards. With this moratorium, the DOE will not process applications for greenfield coal-fired power generation facility projects requesting for endorsements.
- A minimal growth in the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM) registered capacity was observed in February 2021 compared to September 2020 despite the entry of new power plants. The decelerated growth by 3.29% was attributed by the decrease in capacities and cessation of registration of some power plants. The electricity demand was observed to have an unusual trend compared to previous years due to the implementation of community quarantine brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic. Further, the average system demand consistently decreased as the year progressed from September 2020 to January 2021. The lower demand was due to the cooler weather during the season, as well as the prevalence of holidays, which had a significant impact on power demand. This is on top of the several powerful tropical depressions, including Typhoon Quinta, Typhoon Rolly, and Typhoon Ulysses during the latter part of the year, that disrupted the country's power grid and resulted in a drop in demand. However, the average system demand increased after a previous 4-month decline in February 2021. Based on the yearly trend, the uptick in demand this month followed the increasing pattern going into February in previous years. With this, electricity demand plus reserve fell by 9% from an average of 11,278 MW in September 2020 to 10,233 MW in February 2021. The average effective supply also dropped by 3% from September 2020 to February 2021 as fewer capacities were available in the market due to an increase in outage capacity and capacities not offered by generators. As a result of the supply-demand mix, average supply margin increased by 35%. The level of supply margin during the community quarantine period was still at a remarkable high as compared to previous years of similar months.
- In terms of the market share limitations as provided in Section 45 of the EPIRA, it remained that no power generation entity has exceeded the installed generating capacity and market share... Read more
