Renewable energy ‘good but comes with a price’

Sunstar Davao

RENEWABLE energy sources when abundant and available will help solve Mindanao's power supply woes. Trouble is they do not come cheap.

"It is readily available but the question is can we afford the price?" said former General Santos City Chamber of Commerce and Industry president Manny Yaphuckon.

Yaphuckon, who is also an electrical engineer, said solar energy could drive the cost of generating electricity from P3 that is now being charged by the National Power corporation to as much as P19 per kilowatt hour.

"I have also some problems with wind. I believe we need a sustained minimum speed to drive the turbines on a 24-hour basis. We do not have that kind of sustained wind velocity here," he added.

Yaphuckon also said that there are not enough hydro power sources in Central Mindanao to build a 200-megawatt capacity.

"We (in General Santos) need a baseload capacity of at least 80 megawatts," the businessman said.

Yaphuckon issued the statement in the eve of the arrival of rainbow Warrior, a ship owned Greenpeace that has been advocating for renewable energy.

Power firm Conal Holdings vice president for business development, Joseph Nocos, said their own studies suggested that alternative energy sources enough to energize a 200-megawatt power plant are not available in Mindanao.

"Mindanao is not within the wind zone that can produce energy on a 24/7 and sustained bases. Solar power is likewise only available for a limited number of hours," Nocos explained.

The Conal Holdings executive said deploying these types of power plants will drive electricity bills beyond the reach of ordinary households.

"These types of plants generate electricity only 20-25 percent of the time, thereby driving up the cost of capital recovery four to five times," Nocos said.

"The result is wind power at P20 per kilowatt-hour and solar power at P25 per kilowatt-hour… And because wind and solar are only available 20-25 percent of the time, they need to be supplemented by diesel power generation, which will further drive up the cost of electricity," he added.

Nocos said the potential of hydropower in Mindanao is now already limited to small and dispersed capacities.

Besides, he added, over reliance on this type of generation made the island extremely vulnerable to droughts as experienced in the first half of 2010 and various other times in the last two decades.

Mindanao has an installed hydro power capacity of over 900 megawatts - the Agus River hydro power plant complex that produces over 700 megawatts and the Pulangi hydropower plant (255 MW).

Together with the 105-megawatt geothermal plant in Mt. Apo, these renewable energy sources make up for close to 60 percent of the island's 1,820 MW installed capacity.

Available capacity in the island is now down to 1,320 MW.

Greenpeace is campaigning for a 50 percent renewable energy Philippines by 2020.

"Mindanao has been 60 percent renewable since 1999, beating the Greenpeace target to have 50 percent renewable energy generation in the Philippines by 2020," Nocos said.

Mindanao is already suffering from power supply shortfall with reserve capacity virtually non-existent. Industry sources in the region will be short by 450 megawatts in 2015 if no new capacities are built within the period.

For most of the island, it means rotational brownouts of up to 12 hours a day. (PR)

Published in the Sun.Star Davao newspaper on November 22, 2010.