An industrial plant in Panama (PA) that exceeds 100 kW of maximum demand at one site is no longer obliged to buy at a regulated tariff: it can negotiate a price. That threshold is the entry door to the wholesale electricity market, and it defines a category — the Gran Cliente — that the operator counts by site rather than by firm. Two different figures for the same universe come out of it, and both are correct.
What the wholesale electricity market is and since when it exists
The wholesale electricity market is the space where short, medium and long term commercial transactions take place between participants, for the purchase and sale of energy and capacity. That is how the operator that coordinates it defines the market, adding the constraint that sets it apart from any other: it cannot store inventory to sell later when demand falls.
The obligation to supply the country 24 hours a day, 365 days a year turns that constraint into the axis of the design. Everything else — the registers, the guarantees, the dispatch rules — exists to solve the same problem: matching supply and demand in real time, with no warehouse in between.
The start has a date. According to the operator’s page, the market began in 1999, when Law 6 of 6 February 1997 came into force, setting out the regulatory and institutional framework for the public electricity service. That is the reference as the operator publishes it, and the text of the rule is consulted separately.
Who produces: four figures, not one
On the supply side the market has not one figure but four, and the difference between them is not size but purpose. The distinction matters because it determines who may be sold energy, on what terms, and with what information obligations towards the system operator.
| Figure | What it does | Entries in the register |
|---|---|---|
| Generator | produces electricity to be sold commercially | 62 |
| Self-generator | produces and consumes on one site; may sell surpluses | 5 |
| Cogenerator | produces energy as a by-product of an industrial process | category with no published list |
| International interconnection | transfers of energy and capacity between countries | governed by the regional operating body |
The self-generator carries the most restrictive definition of the four: it produces and consumes on one and the same site to meet its own needs, and does not use, trade or transport its energy with third parties or associates, though it may sell surpluses. The five entries in the register are the Panama Canal Authority, Azucarera Nacional, Empresas Melo, Generación Solar and Minera Panamá.
The cogenerator is defined by the purpose of the business, not by the technology: it produces electricity as a by-product of an industrial process whose primary purpose is to produce goods or services other than energy. It is the figure that fits a sugar mill, a paper mill or a process plant using residual steam, and it is the one category of the five for which the operator publishes a definition without a list of names attached to it.
Who consumes: three distributors and one long list
On the wholesale demand side there are two figures. Distributors hold a concession to provide the distribution service, and there are three of them: the Chiriquí distribution company, the Metro Oeste one and Elektra Noreste. Those three concessions cover the territory and are the door through which residential and small commercial consumption passes, so any consumer below the threshold meets the market only through the distributor that serves its area.
The second figure is the Gran Cliente, and its definition orders everything else: a natural or legal person with maximum demand above one hundred kilowatts per site, whose electricity purchases may be made at freely agreed prices or may take the regulated tariffs. The choice between free price and regulated tariff sits with the customer.
One further figure completes the picture, and it is unique. The transmission company holds a concession for the transmission of electricity, and in this market only one company is in that position: the state transmission company, which the dispatch coordination centre also belongs to.
What the Gran Cliente register shows when the names are counted
The nominal register of participants lists 82 entries in the Gran Cliente category at the cut-off date of this note. Counted by name, those entries do not represent 82 firms: the per-site definition makes one and the same company appear as many times as it has premises above the threshold.
| Name repeated in the register | Entries | Share of the 82 |
|---|---|---|
| Supermarket chain | 38 | 46.34% |
| Gaming hall operator | 6 | 7.32% |
| Group of food plants | 4 | 4.88% |
| Factories of a food multinational | 3 | 3.66% |
| Stations of an oil terminal | 3 | 3.66% |
| Sum of the five names | 54 | 65.85% |
The relevant point is not commercial concentration but the unit of count. Five names cover 54 of the 82 entries, and a single supermarket chain contributes 38. Any reading that treats the register as a census of industrial firms is displaced by that structure, because a good part of the entries are retail premises that pass the threshold on refrigeration and air-conditioning load.
The grouping above was done by name coincidence in the register entry, not by verified corporate structure. It serves to show how the unit of count behaves, not to attribute consumption to a business group.
Why 82 and 608 are the same reality
The monthly market report for July 2026 uses another unit. There the operator states that in the current period there are 608 withdrawal points, split among the three distributors: 14 in Chiriquí, 318 in Metro Oeste and 276 in Elektra Noreste. The sum closes exactly at 608, and that figure coexists with the 82 entries of the nominal register without contradicting it.
These are two different bases for the same phenomenon: the nominal register lists entries with the name of a holder, and the report counts physical withdrawal points connected to each distribution grid. The ratio between them — some 7.4 points per entry — is a scale reference between two units, not the number of premises of an average company. One base must never be subtracted from the other.
The same report records the movement of the month: eight large customers joined and two left, a net of six. And it gives two aggregates for the active and passive set: a non-coincident maximum generation demand of 438.7111 MW and consumption of 172,045.30 MWh over the month.
How a producer enters: nine steps and three counters
Access for a new producer does not run through a single office. The formalities are split between the regulator, the transmission company and the dispatch centre, and the requirements page arranges them in two blocks: those completed before entry into operation, and those settled when that entry is near.
| Block | Step | Rule cited by the operator |
|---|---|---|
| Initial formalities | Generation licence or concession | before the regulator |
| Initial formalities | Feasibility of connection to the system | Transmission Regulation, Title IV |
| Initial formalities | Long-term firm capacity, for hydro or wind plants | Operation Regulation, Volume III, MDP.2.18 to MDP.2.21 |
| Near operation | Connection requirements | Transmission Regulation, article 49 |
| Near operation | Interconnection requirements | Operation Regulation, Volumes V and VI |
| Near operation | Remote supervision of the facilities | Operation Regulation, Volume IV, first chapter |
| Near operation | Validation of the commercial metering system | Operation Regulation, Volume IV, second chapter |
| Near operation | Payment guarantee in place | Commercial Rules, clause 14.10.1.3 |
| Near operation | Account at the collection and management bank | Commercial Rules, clause 14.10.1.2 |
The third step separates technologies. Only hydro and wind plants must determine their long-term firm capacity under the dispatch and hourly planning manual, with a specific requirements sheet for the hydro case. It is the point where the market design acknowledges that the availability of those two technologies depends on a variable resource.
The last two steps are financial rather than technical, and their detail runs down to the banking level: the occasional market account opens with a minimum balance of one dollar and no chequebook, online banking is for consultation only, and closure for inactivity does not apply. The account starts to operate once the dispatch centre asks the bank to associate it with the occasional market.
How a Gran Cliente is connected
The consumer’s route is shorter than the producer’s but has the same three-counter structure. The first requirement the operator names is compliance with Resolution AN N° 961-Elec of 25 June 2007, and the second, where necessary, obtaining feasibility of connection to the system under the same title of the transmission regulation that applies to producers.
That resolution is named here as the operator cites it; its content is verified with the regulator that issued it. What the page does establish is the order: first the regulatory condition, then technical feasibility, and only then the actual connection.
The decision preceding the whole procedure is economic and sits in the definition of the category itself: once the per-site threshold is passed, the customer may buy at freely agreed prices or take the regulated tariff. Neither option is automatic, and the register shows that the choice is made premises by premises.
Where the limits of these registers lie
The first limit is one of date. The participant type pages carry no update date, so any count holds for the day on which it is taken, and here it was taken on 23 August 2026. A register without a date stamp is not a less reliable register, but it forces the citation rather than the source to be dated.
The second limit is one of coverage. The cogenerator category is defined on the page but carries no published list, so the number of active cogenerators cannot be read there. And the nominal register does not indicate since when each entry appears, so it does not allow additions and removals to be reconstructed: that shows only in the monthly report. Nor does it reproduce any rule: the text of Law 6 of 1997 and its numbering are verified in the official gazette.
The third is one of scope. The supply contracts section publishes a single document, updated through July 2026 and uploaded on 18 August 2026. That is where the contract market becomes visible; the volume under contract against the volume bought on the occasional market is followed separately, in the series of market reports.
Frequent misreadings and what to watch
The first misreading is treating the number of large customers as a number of firms. It is not: 82 are per-site entries and 608 are withdrawal points, and neither figure answers the question of how many companies buy at free prices in the country. That third figure is not published on these pages.
The second is assuming that passing 100 kW forces an exit from the regulated tariff. The definition says the opposite: it enables purchase at an agreed price, and leaves the possibility of taking the tariff open. The threshold opens an option; it does not impose one.
The third is reading the generator list as a capacity map. There are 62 entries with company names, and a company may hold one plant or several, just as a plant may hold several units. The register identifies participants, not plants or megawatts, and the same caution applies to the distributor line: three concessions do not mean three grids of comparable size.
What is worth watching over the coming months falls into three kinds. First, the monthly movement of large customers joining and leaving, which the report publishes each month and which in July 2026 left a net of six. Second, the update of the supply contracts list, which marks the month through which the contractual register is closed. Third, whether a published list of cogenerators appears, that being today the only one of the five categories with no count available from the operator’s site.
Analysis, not personalised advice. For transactional decisions, verify the tariff value or the text of the rule directly with the operator or the regulator.