NEW WESM OPERATOR READY BY JUNE – CUSI

THE Wholesale Electricity Spot Market ( WESM) will have by June a new and independent market operator ( IMO) that’s separate from current operator Philippine Electricity Market Corp. (PEMC), the Department of Energy (DoE) said on Monday.

In an interview, Energy Secretary Alfonso Cusi said the DoE circular on the transfer of WESM’s operations to the IMO is done, but no date has been set for its release. It added that the new operator’s incorporators are yet to be chosen.

According to him, the incorporators should not have any interest in or ties to the spot market.

“I’m just very careful on” choosing the right people, Cusi said. “I want to make sure they don’t have any dependent.”

Once the IMO is in place, it shall decide when to start operations, transfer assets and reorganize people.

Cusi said the WESM transition committee shall name a new PEMC president next month and he will step down as the company’s chairman of the board by June.

The creation of the IMO shall come 16 years after the implementation of Republic Act 9136, or the Electric Power Industry Reform Act of 2001 (Epira). This law mandates that the entity operating WESM shall be autonomous and made up of the DoE and representatives from the power industry.

But PEMC, the spot market’s governing body, has also been its operator since 2003.

Cusi’s statement came a month after PEMC spokesman Francis Saturnino Juan said they already have the blueprint for endorsing the WESM operations to an IMO.

“Right now, the proposal after the WESM rules is an IMO that is” - tion, Juan said.

The IMO “should be technically capable with experience, [with] at least two years experience in running a [spot] market similar to” ours, he added.