Danessa Rivera (The Philippine Star)
- September 24, 2019 - 12:00am
MACTAN, Cebu, Philippines — Manila
Electric Co. (Meralco) is pushing for an energy transition plan from high- to
low-carbon emissions among power companies to help attain the regional goal of
energy sustainability and security.
During the Association of
Electricity Supply Industry of East Asia and the Western Pacific (AESIEAP) CEO
Conference, Meralco president and chief executive officer Ray Espinosa said
“energy transition into renewables is inevitable given the twin perils of
global warming and dwindling fossil fuel supplies. “
“We must develop and implement our
energy transition plan. We should leverage on technological advancements of
renewable energy (RE) and energy efficiency that can be adopted in the whole
region,” Espinosa said.
As the Philippines’ largest power
distributor, Meralco is expected to have a “huge bearing” on the power sector
as it currently transitions from high carbon to low carbon, and eventually to
zero carbon down the road, Espinosa said.
However, achieving this would be
dependent on the conditions in the country, the abundance of RE capacity, and
the availability of technology.
“In our minds, we have set an agenda
whereby as we contract stable sources of power, our minds are actually focused
on basically moving ourselves from a high carbon to low carbon footprint and
hopefully to a zero carbon electricity, which is tapping renewables. The issue
in the Philippines is the abundance, whether it can actually substitute fully
for fossil fuels. That’s a big question,” Espinosa said.
Meralco Powergen Corp. (MGen), the
power generating arm of Meralco, is developing 1,000 to 2,000 megawatts (MW) of
RE projects in the next five years.
“For MGen, we’re really focusing on
developing 1,000-2,000 MW of RE in the next five years. We’re all over Luzon to
identify these affordable sites. That’s the program from MGen. Hopefully we can
provide this support to Meralco,” MGen president and CEO Rogelio Singson said.
Singson—who is also senior vice
president at Meralco—said the power distributor also has to balance its power
sources.
“It cannot be no-coal immediately,”
he said.
To reduce carbon footprint, the
group is looking at carbon capture and storage technology for coal-fired power
plants, which are still considered as the cheapest power source in the country.
“There has to be a roadmap… a
transition plan and this requires basically cooperation from all not only from
the private sector but even the government because the government should lay
down the policies for this transition to happen,” Espinosa said.
“We cannot make it work alone
because there are other conditions that are dependent on government policies
and actions,” he said.
The Philippines already sources 32
percent of its total power requirements from renewable energy sources. This is
higher than the ASEAN regional target of 23 percent by 2030.
For its part, the Philippine
government is employing a technology neutral stance on power development to
focus on the country’s energy security.
“We really need to develop energy
security…we’re still building our capacity that’s why DOE (Department of
Energy) adopted technology neutrality. We need to fill up our capacity to
sufficient reserves,” Energy Secretary Alfonso Cusi said.
To balance this, the DOE is also
continuously pushing for the development of RE projects.
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