Published
July 15, 2017, 10:00 PM By Myrna M. Velasco
The National Renewable
Energy Board (NREB) is injecting some flexibility in the incremental purchase
of renewable energy (RE) capacity that off-taker distribution utilities would
have to adhere to under the renewable portfolio standards (RPS).
That had been based on
the current draft of the RPS Rules that the RE body had recently set out for
public comments and stakeholder inputs.
In an interview with
reporters, NREB Vice Chairman Juan Antonio Bernad explained that the prescribed
percentage of RE capacity supply procurement had been reduced from originally
at 2.15 percent to 1.0-percent increment annually.
“Before, there was a
proposal for 2.15 percent, now we set it at a starting point of 1.0 percent.
Every year, (DUs) have to add 1.0 percent of some RE in (their) supply,” he
said.
As a point of
reference, that will be the requirement set for DUs under the RPS rules on RE
capacity procurement – and that will be of any RE technology being the supply
source.
He added that the
planning horizon had been stretched to 2040 – from originally at year 2030 – to
align it with the “Ambisyon 2040” industrialization goals of the Duterte
administration.
“We changed the
timeframe from 2030 to 2040 but the percentage is still at 35 percent (share in
the power mix). The reckoning is anything that came after the law was passed,
that was from 2009,” Bernad said.
He added the RE
capacity procurement would not just be limited to the emerging RE technologies,
but even the conventional ones like large hydro and geothermal facilities.
The RPS mandates
electricity generation increase from RE resources and such capacity shall be
taken up as part of the supply portfolio of off-takers, primarily the
distribution utilities.
In a related
development, Department of Energy Director Mario Marasigan asserted that
consultation processes on the RPS may be completed around September – with the
major multi-stakeholder event happening this August.
The tricky part of the
discourse is bringing it to the level of the stakeholders in Mindanao, he said,
given the grid’s unique market dynamics and the lingering strife in some parts
of the region.
But he said they are
confident of meeting the target, so the RPS could be aptly timed to the
scheduled review of the feed-in-tariff rules (FIT Rules) by December this year.
For the other policy
proposition to incentivize RE developments post the FIT regime, Marasigan noted
that the rules governing “Green Energy Option” has already been crafted and
would be ready for submission to Energy Secretary Alfonso G. Cusi next month.
These twin policy
developments have been awaited by the RE sector so they can finally advance
fresh round of capital mobilization in the industry.
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