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Saturday, April 25, 2009

Demand-Side Management in Visayas: Why Another Route?

Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM) proposed Visayas Supply Augmentation Auction (VSAA) Program which was approved by the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC). The VSAA is aimed for demand-side management (DSM) in Visayas where interruptible load of embedded generators will be auctioned just like a competitive market. Please see approved proposed VSAA.

There have been reports that Visayan Electric Co. (Veco) has been practicing (DSM) by having interruptible contracts to its consumers. See this link: Veco, firms to sign power deal.

My question is this: Veco has a working DSM model system. Was there a study providing benefits of a market based DSM compared to the existing practice? Is there a need for a market based DSM that would add another fraction of peso to the rates being charged?

With ERC's approval, market based DSM will go through WESM instead of having Veco and its consumers taking directly. There might be added cost to that. You can say this is only Veco, how about the other distribution utilities? Well, the Veco model works as reported, why not adapt the model that works fine.

Why another route?

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