By Danessa Rivera (The
Philippine Star) | Updated March 6, 2016 - 12:00am
MANILA, Philippines – Three more
solar projects are joining the race for feed-in tariff (FIT) incentives ahead
of the government-imposed deadline, adding at least 200 megawatts (MW) of
supply to the country’s power grid.
Many solar players are participating
in the race to qualify for FIT incentives, Energy Secretary Zenaida Monsada
said on the sidelines of a forum yesterday.
“Solar is a fast moving renewable
energy resource because we have a 500 MW installation target for FIT,” she
said.
The FIT scheme is a set of
incentives given to power developers for constructing the more expensive
renewable energy (RE) plants.
For solar technology, developers
were given until March 2016 to complete and produce power from their projects
to be eligible to receive the new P8.69 per kilowatt-hour (kwh) FIT rate in the
second round.
Monsada noted two power plants were
inaugurated yesterday — the 50-MW Tarlac solar facility of PetroSolar Corp. and
the 132.5-MW Negros solar farm of Soleq Holdings.
In another interview, Enfinity
Philippines Renewable Sources Inc. business development director William
Ruccius said the company has completed its 29-MW Davao del Sur solar plant.
These projects are being inspected
by the DOE, which will then issue a certificate of endorsement (COE)-FIT
eligibility for endorsement to the Energy REgulatory Commission (ERC).
To date, the agency has issued
COE-FIT eligibility for seven projects with an aggregate capacity of 153.93
megawatts (MW).
Given the rate of solar project
developments, the government is urged to expand the FIT system for into another
round.
Enfinity said setting up a another
round of FIT for solar will encourage more RE development.
“From a developer’s standpoint,
there are many projects that are in different stages of development today that
did not get into construction for this 500 MW FIT so there are many projects
that would be put very quickly, get into construction for the next round of FIT
both for wind and solar,” Ruccius said.
“Once you get the volume of products
moving through the system with the supply chain going and the prices going
down, everybody can benefit here in the Philippines from the lower prices,” he
added.
But putting up another round for FIT
solar will depend on the report of the National Renewable Energy Board (NREB),
Monsada noted.
“We will not talk about extension
and expansion until the March 15 deadline is finished, and until NREB completes
its report,” she said.
No comments:
Post a Comment