Philippine energy market, first quarter 2024

The first quarter of 2024 was steady on output and tightening on power. Growth was 5.7%, inflation drifted from 2.8% in January to 3.7% in March, and the policy rate stayed at 6.50%. The dry season put the Luzon grid under strain, which is where the quarter mattered for anyone buying electricity.

This edition of the quarterly market brief covers January to March 2024. Compiled in September 2026 from the releases of the time, with the revisions the agencies have published since. Nothing here is a forecast.

Growth of 5.7%

Real GDP grew 5.7% year on year, with construction and services carrying it. The first quarter of 2023 had grown 6.4%.

Inflation drifted back up

Headline inflation was 2.8% in January, 3.4% in February and 3.7% in March, still inside the 2 to 4% band. Rice remained the largest contributor. The policy rate was held at 6.50% at every meeting of the quarter.

Fuel steady, power tightening

Dubai crude averaged about 81 dollars a barrel and Australian thermal coal about 130 dollars a tonne, both close to their 2023 exit levels. The strain was on the grid rather than on fuel: as the dry season advanced, the reserve margin on Luzon narrowed and the spot market spent more days at administered prices, a pattern that got worse in the following quarter.

The auction programme moved to firm capacity

The third Green Energy Auction was opened for geothermal, impounding hydro and pumped storage — the technologies that can be dispatched, which the first two rounds had not procured. The offshore wind pipeline continued to grow on paper.

What it meant for a plant

A site drawing its electricity from the grid began to see the cost of thin reserves in its own bill, and a site making its own steam and power did not. That asymmetry, not the commodity price, is what carried the audits of 2024.

If you run a fuel-fired boiler or produce an organic residue, an energy and waste audit turns a quarter like this one into your own numbers. Tell us about your site and an engineer replies with the data we need. The other editions are filed under the quarterly market brief.