THE ENERGY Regulatory Commission’s (ERC) suspension of trading in the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WSEM) is “too late” and would result in consumers dealing with the brunt of increased electricity bills, a lawmaker said on Thursday.
“The WESM should have been suspended earlier when the red and yellow alerts were issued in its second and third days,” Party-list Rep. France L. Castro said in a statement in Filipino. “(The ERC) should not wait for (generation companies) to profit immensely from the lack of electricity supply, which is of their fault.”
The ERC suspended the WESM earlier this week after repeated issuances of yellow and red alerts in the past two weeks as the Luzon and Visayas grids faced thinning power supply.
It has the power to suspend the WESM — the trading floor for electricity — in times of “national and international security emergencies or natural calamities.”
But Bienvenido S. Oplas, Jr., president of think-tank Minimal Government Thinkers, said the ERC should not have resorted to suspending the WESM.
“By suspending WESM trading… you are telling potential reserve suppliers that they will not make money while helping the country avoid a blackout,” he told BusinessWorldin a Viber message.
“Let the price spikes send a signal to potential investors of peaking plants to build their plants this year.”
Some experts are of the view that suspending the WESM would only lead to a short-term reduction in consumer electric prices.
“While the suspension serves as a reactive solution to mitigate immediate price increases, it is by no means a long-term strategy,” Partners for Affordable and Reliable Energy Chief Advocate Officer Nic Satur, Jr. told BusinessWorld.
The ERC should “move beyond temporary fixes and develop comprehensive, long-term solutions,” he said in a Facebook Messenger chat.
In the meantime, the ERC should seek to resolve all pending cases related to the issuance of power alerts and sanction erring parties immediately, Mr. Satur said.
“Go after the compliance for the required reserves,” Mr. Oplas said, referring to ERC’s need to investigate whether electric system operators contracted needed ancillary services to supply increased demand for electricity. — Kenneth Christiane L. Basilio
