Published : Wednesday, April 18, 2012 00:00 Written by : MIKE WOOTTON
I have to say that I find the continual push backs on the development of renewable energy for the Philippines, quite tiresome. “It will cost much more,” ” its unreliable and unpredictable,” “it’s a threat to our manufacturing sovereignty.” There is little in the way of facts to support these types of scaremongering statements, frequently made by those with inadequate knowledge of the subject. Worrisomely the Foundation for Economic Freedom appears to have persuaded the courts to issue a temporary restraining order on the feed in tariff development using exactly the sort of irresponsible statements given above and to avoid governments “subsidising the profits of renewable energy equipment manufacturers” [most of which are foreign]. Perhaps even more worrisomely there seems to be a distinct falling off in the drive behind the renewable energy initiative in the face of all the widespread hostility—perhaps the “drivers” worry that there may be more than a little truth in the plethora of negativity surrounding the topic.
Renewable energy will never seriously displace fossil fueled power in the Philippines, there is simply not the horsepower in renewables to do so; solar and wind power are unreliable sources of “dependable” generation, the wind is very fickle and can just stop blowing without warning, and you cannot store the wind. Solar power is limited by storage capacity and battery technology. Biomass and biogas can produce dependable power, provided that fuel supplies are assured but power plants are generally fairly small. The only serious threat is hydro and, here in the Philippines at least, geothermal power. Eighty percent of Norway’s electricity generation [at 29,000kWh/person per year, compared to the 620kWh/ person per year in the Philippines] is from hydro power, where there are lots of mountains, lakes and rivers. But in the local proselytizing against renewable energy, nobody says too much about the impracticality of wind or solar power replacing coal which produces 31 percent of Philippines’ power or 4,000 megawatts of the 14,000-MW total dependable capacity, or even oil which still produces over 17 percent of total generation capacity—wind, solar and biomass all together produced 0.3 percent of Philippines dependable capacity in 2010. So what if the feed in tariff for solar is proposed at P23 per kWh, compared to an oil generation cost of about P15 to P20 per kWh. The world’s biggest solar power plant in Nevada, is 354 MW the other nine in the world’s top ten are all in the 50 MW to 60 MW range. The world’s biggest wind farm has a 781-MW capacity and there are several others over 200 MW but the capacity factors [the proportion of installed capacity actually produced as electricity taking account of periods when the wind doesn’t blow] are low at about 25 percent. As for biomass, the world’s biggest plant is 265 MW and that is in Finland where there is lots and lots of wood.
The Philippines is an importer of most of its coal for power and an importer of almost all of its oil thus 48 percent of energy production depends on imports. The price of both commodities is very volatile and is affected not only by commodity market forces but also by shipping costs; coal prices rose from about $40 per metric ton in 2001 to $ 150 per MT in 2008, similarly oil prices rose from about $30 per barrel in 2001 to over $120 per barrel in 2010. There may be spikes and troughs in these commodity prices but for sure the trend is always upwards. And of course the subsidies involved are picked up by government through the universal charge and through taxation. Better to subsidize oil and coal suppliers than the “evil” renewable energy equipment manufacturers perhaps?!
The declared renewable energy policy objectives of reducing dependence on imports from volatile world markets is unquestionably correct, but as is sadly often the case in the Philippines, it is in the implementation where it all goes wrong. To gamble the success of achievement of the policy objectives on a regulatory regime including sophisticated mechanisms such as feed in tariffs and renewable portfolio standards all within a confused regulatory environment developed for fossil fuels is to put your neck on the block, for this is the Philippines where people so delight in applying the letter of the law rather than following the spirit of the law [aka, common sense]. You cannot help but wonder if the continual application of the letter of the law is just a device to maintain the status quo on imports for the benefit of whoever it is who has the vested interest in them [perish the thought!].
I can only hope that this micro defense of renewable energy policy might just catch the eye of the well meaning but possibly misled advocates against renewable energy……………………………
Mike can be contacted at mawootton@gmail.com
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