PCCI Wants RE Projects' Bidding

Manila Bulletin
By BERNIE CAHILES-MAGKILAT
September 23, 2011, 1:08am


MANILA, Philippines — The Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PCCI) has urged government to bid out the allocated renewable energy (RE) sources to ensure the lowest price feed-in-tariff that would be granted to developers and to shift the Conditional Cash Transfer to renewable energy to ensure wider benefits.


“We support RE but why is the cost here higher, we want bid this out,” PCCI president Francis Chua told reporters.


According to Chua, Indonesia, Vietnam and Thailand have lower FIT rates compared to what is being talked about here in the Philippines, which is three times higher than these countries.


“Is there any transparency,” he asked.


On transferring CCT to RE, he said, this would mean nationwide coverage unlike the limited CCT beneficiaries.


FIT refers to a guaranteed rate given to renewable-energy developers for their output. Soriano said their proposed projects would not progress without the necessary approval from the energy department. All other necessary permits have been secured. The National Renewable Energy Board’s (Nreb ) recommends that the FIT rates for solar power, ocean power, wind power, biomass and hydropower power to amount to P17.95 per kilowatt-hour (kWh), P17.65/kWh, P10.37/kWh, P7/kWh, and P6.15/kWh, respectively. Nreb had earlier trimmed the installation target for solar-power projects to 50 MW instead of 100 MW.


Chua noted that the gap between RE and fossil fuel on the consumers’ electric bill would amount to 20 centavos per kilowatthour because for every 20 megawatt RE plant, the project proponent has to put up a one megawatt fossil fuel-fed power plant as back up power.