From a producer’s perspective, electricity prices are extremely volatile; this adds an element of risk to an investment. Instead, producers and distributors are simply taking advantage of an awkward and opaque market framework that makes it easy to avoid having to be competitive. Energy policy and regulatory efforts to change this have, at least so far, had largely unsatisfactory results. The first includes a capacity payment component and a fixed operations and maintenance (O&M) cost component; the second, a fuel cost component and a variable O&M cost component. The parameters for CSP bidding can be set by the distributor-customer, albeit within certain regulatory bounds, to favor preferred suppliers.

Source: Manila Times November 04, 2020 16:30 UTC