DOE reviews plan for more mine-mouth plants

By Danessa Rivera (The Philippine Star) | Updated November 19, 2016 - 12:00am

http://www.philstar.com/business/2016/11/19/1645081/doe-reviews-plan-more-mine-mouth-plants

MANILA, Philippines - Even amid the push for cleaner power sources, industry players are still promoting the development of coal mine-mouth plants which they believe are viable investments to lower electricity costs and ensure supply security by stripping out importations and transportation of fuel to power plants.

The development of coal mine-mouth plants is being studied by the Department of Energy (DOE) since it allows the country to develop indigenous fuel sources and not rely on importation, Energy Secretary Alfonso Cusi said during the Coal Business and Policy Forum yesterday.

 “We have our own resources. So what I said is, let’s use the natural resources of the country,” he said.

Cusi said the agency would undertake a study on the concept of putting up a coal plant near the mine site.

Coal mine-mouth plants are built close to a coal mine and this translates to lower electricity cost by removing the transport cost, Philippine Chamber of Coal Mines Inc. (PhilCoal) executive director Arnulfo Robles said in the same event.

 “If the plant is separate from the mine site, there’s handling that will add up to the cost of coal [power]. So if you put up the plant near or adjacent to the mine site, you remove that cost. and that basically reduces the cost for coal, which is the fuel for the power plant,” he said.

Based on a study co-authored by Robles, the cost of generating electricity from mine-mouth plants is estimated between P2.61 per kilowatt-hour and P4.45 per kwh.

The study showed there are 10 potential mine sites for mine-mouth plants which are near the electricity grid and substations.

 “The only way these mines can be viable is by putting up the power plant as close as possible,” PhilCoal chairman Rufino Bomasang said in the same event.

 “Otherwise, if you do not put up these mine-mouth power plants, these available resources will never be developed,” he said.

However, the development of mine-mouth plants face transmission issues, since coal mines are usually located in remote areas, and public acceptance.

 “Mines are site specific, normally they are in the remote areas where the power need is not huge. So what you do is come up with a transmission highway,” Robles said. “The second is social acceptability. Those are the things you have to consider as well other than the cost of producing electricity.”

Environment groups are urging the government not to allow the development of coal plants which are seen as a major contributor to carbon emissions and the degradation of the environment.

But Marcial Ocampo, a financial consultant for energy projects, said there is potential to shift from coal to renewable energy by developing mine-mouth plants.

He said mine-mouth power plants using circulating fluidized bed combustion technology and low calorific value lignite – a type of coal mostly found in the country – are convertible to biomass-fired power plants, which converts waste materials to energy.

ERC asked to re-validate ‘first dispatch schedule’ of solar plants

Published November 18, 2016, 10:00 PM By Myrna M. Velasco

http://business.mb.com.ph/2016/11/18/erc-asked-to-re-validate-first-dispatch-schedule-of-solar-plants/

The registered “first dispatch schedule” of solar plants in the second wave race on feed-in-tariff (FIT) sets the “decisive point” on which projects will deserve the incentive, thus, Energy Secretary Alfonso G. Cusi is asking the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) to re-validate data from the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) and Philippine Electricity Market Corporation (PEMC) relating to the plea of the project developers.

In an interview with reporters, Cusi noted that the matter “is being looked at by ERC already.”

In a letter to the DOE, the Philippine Solar Power Alliance (PSPA) stipulated that if the rules on the second solar race would have stayed true to the intent and provisions of DOE Department Circular Number DC-2013-05-0009, the “first dispatch” undertaken by participant-solar farms could have been the major basis for them to qualify in the FIT incentive.

PSPA noted the “meters cannot lie.” Nevertheless, they were all just shocked to discover later on that the “goal posts” of the solar FIT2 race allegedly moved to serve the interest of some parties.

On this lingering scuffle, Cusi qualified that certificates of endorsement (COEs) for the solar FIT of R8.69 per kilowatt-hour (kWh) were already submitted to the ERC before he took over at the Department of Energy’s helm, “so it will be improper for me to recall that… it’s already there, so ERC has to take action on that.”

He added that based on the regulatory body’s findings then, “they (relevant ERC officials) have to take action, then whatever that outcome is, if they need to revert the endorsements to us or would be needing anything from us, that is the time that we will move accordingly.”

Cusi indicated though that based on the initial results of the DOE’s fact-finding committee, there have been data “different from what had been endorsed, but we cannot be the jury for that.”

The energy chief stated they received several complaints from project sponsors and developers that have been disqualified in the solar FIT2 race,  “so we want to validate all of those information, that’s why we have that fact-finding committee of the DOE to once and for all, clarify this – if the allegations are true.”

PSPA President Tetchi Cruz-Capellan previously told media that while they concur with the energy secretary’s pronouncement that everybody knew the rules when they joined the race, their plea is for the DOE “to really go back to the letters of their Circular and see its corresponding provisions as to how projects shall be validated for COE as FIT qualifiers.”

According to Pete Ilagan, chairman of the DOE-delegated Fact Finding Committee, they already gathered relevant data from NGCP and PEMC to tangibly manifest the “first dispatch schedule” of the projects that joined the FIT contest.

The department’s next step, he said, will be to inform the two solar associations to submit anew their position relating the “solar FIT 2” issues, including that critical concern of ‘first dispatch” so the DOE could have solid basis on any recommended measures relating to the project race.

The PSPA, in particular, raised to the DOE “to compare the data submitted by petitioners across all participating companies in order to validate the assessment made by the previous administration and determine the validity of the petitioner’s claim.”

Capellan said “in our mind, this is the crux of the controversy as the department excluded some companies by applying parameters outside the ambit of the Circular.”