posted June 23, 2016 at 11:55 pm by Alena Mae S. Flores
http://thestandard.com.ph/business/208922/coal-plants-now-face-hurdles-.html
New coal power plant projects are
facing uncertainties following the appointment of Regina Lopez as the new
Environment secretary, an industry executive said Thursday.
President-elect Rodrigo Duterte
named Lopez as the new head of the Environment Department, which is in charge
of issuing environmental compliance certificates to new power projects.
Lopez is a daughter of ABS-CBN
chairman Emeritus Eugenio Lopez Jr. Her family controls renewable energy
producer First Philippine Holdings Corp., which declared its stance against
coal projects.
Other power companies, however, are
building thousands of megawatts of new coal-fired power plants across the
country’s three power grids to meet the rising power demand.
“With a true bloodied environmentalist
heading the DENR, getting an ECC for coal plants will really go through very
stringent requirements,” said Rolando Bacani, president of Global Business
Power Corp., one of the largest independent power producers, which owns and
operates several coal power plants.
Bacani, however, said he remained
optimistic that the construction of coal plants would continue “until such time
that reliable sources of non-fossil-fired baseload plants are available and
acceptable to the Filipinos [natural gas and nuclear power plant].”
Global Business Power is building a
670-megawatt coal-fired power plant in La Union.
Meralco PowerGen Corp., the power
generation arm of Manila Electric Co., is waiting for new policies from the
department to determine whether these policies will have an impact on projects
in the pipeline.
“We will have to wait for new
policies, if any is forthcoming,” Meralco PowerGen general manager Aaron
Domingo said, adding existing power projects had already gone through the
proper and complete process to secure the ECCs.
Meralco PowerGen, together with
partners, is putting up several coal-fired power projects such as the 455-MW
San Buenaventura coal-fired power plant in Quezon, 1,200-MW Atimonan coal
project also in Quezon and the 600-MW Redondo Peninsula Energy Corp.’s coal
plant in Subic.
Other companies that have ongoing
coal power projects and new coal projects in the pipeline are San Miguel Corp.,
Aboitiz Power Corp., AES Philippines, Trans-Asia Oil and Energy Development
Corp.
The coal plants are also facing
challenges this year as the Climate Change Commission pushed for a review of
the country’s energy policy with the view of eventually replacing coal plants
with renewable energy projects.
The Energy Department also made a
pronouncement that it would come out with stricter standards on coal-fired
power plants. Businessman Manuel Pangilinan, however, said the public should be
prepared to accept the higher cost of renewable energy and urged the government
to come out with a clear energy policy mix.
“We need a policy direction, what is
the appropriate fuel mix for our people. And once that’s decided, businesses
will build the plants, whether it’s a gas plant, coal plant or renewable plant.
So we just need a direction,” Pangilinan said.
Pangilinan said the government
should quantify the cost of building renewable energy, which was more
expensive.
“Remember, there’s always a price
you need to protect the environment,” he said.
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