April 11, 2018 | 10:12 pm
THE Department of Energy (DoE) is studying
a shift in its energy mix policy in favor of sourcing 50% of the country’s
requirements from baseload power plants and 40% from flexible facilities, an
official of the agency said on Wednesday.
“[The shift] is based on current
trends as far as demand is concerned and also based on the technologies that
are coming in,” Energy Undersecretary Felix William B. Fuentebella told
participants of a forum hosted by General Electric Philippines, Inc. at Shangri-La
at the Fort in Bonifacio Global City.
He said members the DoE’s power
bureau are considering “scenarios on how to come out with the proper energy
mix.”
“By looking at the data, initially
from a 70% baseload, 20% medium range, 10% peaking, we are looking at a shift —
around 50% baseload and 40% flexible plants,” he said during the forum.
The 70-20-10 mix is the DoE’s take
on what the system requires — that is, the bulk of demand is best supplied by
baseload plants or those that continuously run on a 24/7 basis. The 20% medium
or mid-merit plants can be quickly switched on and off as required by the
system, while the 10% peaking plants address the spike in demand, say, at
around noon when power usage is at its highest in Luzon.
The energy mix under the current
administration is a revision of the previous tack of the previous leadership,
which looked at a 30-30-30-10 distribution for coal, natural gas, renewable
energy and oil-fired power plants. Power generation companies use the policy
maker’s energy mix direction in guiding their plans to put up new plants.
Mr. Fuentebella said the review of
the DoE’s energy mix policy was also dictated by the disruption in the “load
side behavior” after the entry of more renewable energy sources.
“We would need more flexible plants.
So we’re looking at the role of natgas (natural gas) plants and how [they] will
affect coal and how the mix will be affected,” he said.
DoE data, however, show a different
picture on the kind of plants that will come online in the coming years.
From January this year until
end-2025, a total of 8,618.36 megawatts (MW) of capacity is expected to be
added to the country’s power grid, majority of which will come from coal-fired
power plants.
Coal will remain the dominant source
of power with an expected addition of 6,325 MW. Hydroelectric power is a
distant second with 1,133.5 MW, followed by biomass with 240.46 MW.
Despite the vaunted abundance of
solar power in the country, it is expected to account for only 92.86 MW of
future capacity. New wind projects are nonexistent in the DoE’s latest report.
Natural gas-fired power plants are
expected to contribute 650 MW, while geothermal plants are projected to provide
93 MW.
As of end-2017, the Philippines had
a total installed capacity of 22,728 MW, of which coal has remained the
dominant energy source with a share of 35.4%.
Coal-fired power plants had a total
installed capacity of 8,049 MW. Renewable energy sources followed closely at
7,079 MW or 31.1% of the total, although taken individually only hydroelectric
power plants posted a double-digit share of the total at 16% or 3,627 MW.
Oil-based energy sources made up
18.3% of the dependable capacity at 4,153 MW. Natural gas had a share of 15.2%
or 3,447 MW as of end-2017. — Victor V. Saulon
No comments:
Post a Comment