NREB pushes 100MW solar installations

Manila Bulletin

By MYRNA M. VELASCO

May 19, 2011, 9:56pm

 MANILA, Philippines — Contrary to claims, the National Renewable Energy Board (NREB) has set on record that the first phase of solar installation in the Philippines is higher at 100 megawatts as compared to Thailand’s jumpstart installation level of 55 megawatts.

And from the bad experience of other countries, the Philippines must learn the tricky lessons that they have gone through, specifically the expensive costs arising from solar installations, NREB chairman Pete Maniego Jr. has noted.

“Thailand did not plan for 3 GW (gigawatt) of solar power. The initial planned installation target was even lower than the NREB approved 100 MW,” he clarified.

In fact, based on the figures culled, while Thailand cornered proposals for photovoltaic (PV) and concentrating solar thermal (CST) projects which may yield more than 3,500MW of capacity, this has been set as a long-term target.

The actual initial targets for solar installation in that country are at 55MW for 2011; 95MW by 2016 and 500MW by 2022; which simply implies that the Philippines is even more aggressive with its preliminary installation target.

The greatest apprehension being thrown against solar technology is the exorbitant feed-in-tariff (FIT) applied for it at P17.95 per kilowatt hour (kWh), which may end up extremely punishing in the pocket of Filipino electricity consumers.

“Thailand's ‘adder’ was too attractive, so that they were overwhelmed with applications. Thailand lowered (its) 'adder", but had to honor the applications made before the reduced ‘adder’. We don't want to be in same position. I think that the Philippines would really be the laughingstock of the world’, if it did not learn its lesson from other countries' bad experience with ultra high solar installations,” Maniego averred.

Additionally, a study undertaken by World Bank consultant Leonardo Lupano indicated that other countries also had dismal experiences with solar, primarily on the aspect of costs.

“Spain had to drastically reduce the solar FIT rates and institute installation caps when 3.0 gigawatt of solar were installed within one year,” the study said, stressing that solar’s impact on Spain’s electricity rate had been very high.

It has been further emphasized that “Korea experienced similar problems”; and even German consumers are complaining that they subsidized the development of solar technology with high feed-in-tariffs.