PEMC sets interim commercial operation of RE market this month
By Myrna M. Velasco – August 22, 2022, 4:43 PM
from Manila Bulletin
The Philippine Electricity Market Corporation (PEMC), which is the institutionalized and legally-recognized governance body of the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM), is scheduling the interim commercial operation of the renewable energy market (REM) this month.
The propounded REM was launched last month; and its interim market debut is slated this August 26, as officially announced by the governing entity of the spot market.
“There is no trading of RECs (renewable energy certificates), and no financial transactions are involved during the interim period, pending the approval of the REC price cap,” Clares Loren C. Jalocon, head of Corporate Planning and Communications of PEMC has noted.
As emphasized, the registration of RE market participants kicked off in early part of 2020; and so far, about 96-percent of the applications had already been processed and approved; while some still have pending submissions on requirements.
By July this year, about 281 entities had already been logged as prospective participants in the RE market, according to the WESM’s governing body.
PEMC President Leonido J. Pulido III asserted that “the REM will incentivize the harnessing of our wealth of natural resources, bringing in additional, more sustainable sources of electricity,” with him emphasizing that such technology diversification “will safeguard our energy supply security.
It was further conveyed that the legal basis for PEMC to assume its function in the operationalization of the RE Market had been DOE Department Circular No. DC2022-06-0019, which was issued in June this year.
As widely known in the restructured power sector, PEMC had been long time-operator of the WESM and it was also the entity that had cast all the needed improvements and brought the spot market to its significant level of maturity – that was until its function shifted to becoming the spot market’s governing entity in 2018.
Essentially, PEMC’s concretization of the RE Market will serve as its added critical function and this will be a major support to the targeted massive-scale RE installations which is also the flagship energy program of the Marcos administration.
Under Section 8 of the Renewable Energy Act or Republic Act 9513, “PEMC is the entity designated to perform the RE Registrar (RER) functions which shall establish a Renewable Energy Registrar and issue, keep, and verify RE certificates corresponding to energy generated from eligible RE facilities,” adding that these RE certificates “will be used for compliance with the Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS).”
The RPS policy prescribes that the mandated participants – primarily the distribution utilities (DUs), shall procure certain percentage of their supply portfolio from RE capacities – and that volume as well as the increment shall be set by the Department of Energy (DOE) on a yearly basis.
PEMC explained that “the Philippine REM is a venue for the buying and selling of renewable energy certificates, a market-based instrument that represents the property rights and other non-power attributes of renewable electricity generation.”
For its function as the DOE-designated RER, PEMC specified that it will “issue one (1) REC for every MWh (megawatt-hour) of actual generation from eligible RE facilities to REM participants.
