Friday, June 24, 2011

DOE set to award 80 RE contracts this month

By Donnabelle L. Gatdula (The Philippine Star) Updated June 24, 2011 12:00 AM

MANILA, Philippines - The Department of Energy (DOE) is set to award up to 80 more renewable energy (RE) contracts within this month, a top energy official said.
Energy Undersecretary Jay Layug said most of the contracts to be awarded are mini-hydropower plant projects.
“Within this month, we are anticipating 40 to 80 new service contracts for renewable energy projects,” he said. “I don’t have the specifics, but most are for hydropower again. A few wind, some solar, but majority is hydro.”
Based on the DOE list, there are 124 hydropower projects, of which 99 are in the pre-development stages and eight are already in development stages. There are already 17 existing hydropower projects in the country.
The DOE data showed that there would be a potential capacity of 281.97 megawatts from new hydropower projects.
Under the Power Development Program, the country would need more RE development projects to help meet the additional power capacity in the long-term.
For 2010-2030, the Luzon grid would need some 11,900 MW additional power, of which only 600 MW has been committed and 3,448 MW is indicative.
In the 20-year period under the PDP, some 2,150 MW new capacity is needed for the Visayas grid. Of this, 654 MW has already committed and 186 MW is indicative.
For Mindanao, the island would need some 2,500 MW additional capacity for the period 2010-2030, of which only 100 MW has been committed and 581 MW is indicative.
Layug pointed out that the new contracts would be on top of the RE installation targets set by the DOE.
“The ones to be awarded need to undertake pre-development studies for two years – they need to determine if the areas covered have strong and consistent winds or they need to determine if the illumination of the sun is ok. So it’s not included in the installation targets. For the installation targets, these are for the existing 227 service contract holders. In essence, these 40 to 80 are still on the exploration phase where they have to do a pre-development study for two years from the time we award it,” he explained.

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