Published
October 27, 2016, 10:01 PM By Myrna M. Velasco
The country’s
“overbuild” of solar farms will correspondingly punish Filipino consumers’
pockets with feed-in-tariff allowance (FIT-All) inflating to as high as R0.27
per kilowatt hour (kwh).
That had been the
initial calculation of the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC), on number
crunching set for the 890 megawatts (MW) of solar capacity already in
commercial operations. The low end of the estimated FIT-All rate had been
pegged at R0.23 per kwh, according to a highly placed source at the regulatory
body.
At 500 megawatts of
solar, the regulatory body noted that FIT-All could be pushed up R0.18 to R0.19
per kwh, a bit lower than the anticipated R0.20 to R0.24 per kwh FIT-All
application set to be lodged by the National Transmission Corporation.
The solar developers
are clamoring in a very forceful way that they all be given a share of the FIT
incentives – even with them knowing it from the beginning that the race for FIT
shall only be capped at 500MW.
Following the second
wave of FIT allocations, many “losing developers” cannot accept a government
mandate that their ventures could not be afforded the FIT subsidy.
They are now intensely
batting for a third round of FIT even at a rate lower than R8.69 per kilowatt
hour. Their argument is anchored on the fact that they already took risks
on investments, and for them to honor lender commitments, they rightfully need
a pie of the subsidies also.
Beyond the noise, ERC
Chairman Jose Vicente B. Salazar is assuring consumers that they will
judiciously examine the new FIT-All petition that TransCo will file, especially
so since that will entail additional cost impact in the electric bills.
It was similarly
gathered that Energy Secretary Alfonso G. Cusi has very strong aversion of
increasing the FIT-All charges that shall be passed on to the consumers, that
he reportedly wants to guarantee that FIT-ravenous investors could no longer
get to their third round.
The Department of
Energy (DOE) previously asked the ERC to defer the grant of FIT-certificates of
compliance (FIT-COCs) to the solar projects that had been initially qualified
and endorsed for FIT availments.
At present, only 292
megawatts of solar had been officially granted FIT-COCs, hence, it is only them
that can collect their FIT payments from fund administrator TransCo.
The second solar FIT
race placed a ceiling of 500MW on the installations that shall be accorded with
the 20-year financial incentives.
But some groups are now
fiercely questioning the validation report of the DOE on project completions –
allegedly due to lack of transparency on the department’s processes.
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