Power to the People

With EastGreenfields remarks after the article.

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Power to the people 
  

Details  Category: Opinion  Published on Tuesday, 18 June 2013 19:51  Written by The BusinessMirror Editorial

IT is crucial for the Philippines to accelerate infrastructure development to further boost economic growth in the next three years, according to economists. And such development should really prioritize power-generation projects, as the economy will screech to a halt without a stable power supply.

The lack of an adequate power supply, which inevitably leads to high power rates, is one of the reasons the Philippines has yet to convince more foreign investors to come in. We actually lag behind our neighbors in terms of attracting foreign direct investments.

In fact, Mindanao is now bearing the brunt of woefully inadequate power supply, with some areas experiencing between two and eight hours of blackouts daily, adversely affecting productivity and causing considerable business losses.

The bright spot in the power sector is that a number of power-generation projects are in the pipeline that would ensure sufficient power supply in the years ahead.

The Board of Investments has approved two power projects of San Miguel Consolidated Power Corp. The projects, comprising an aggregate capacity of 600 megawatts, are the P25.84-billion, 300-MW coal-fired power plant in Davao del Sur; and the P25.5-billion, 300-MW plant in Bataan. The projects, which will receive income-tax holidays and duty-free importation of capital equipment under the government’s Investment Priorities Plan, will start commercial operations in 2015 and 2016, respectively, using coal from Indonesia or Australia.

Up for approval by the Department of Energy, meanwhile, are new wind- and solar-power projects that will boost renewable-energy (RE) development and curb the country’s reliance on imported oil.  New applications for solar- and wind-power generation could bring RE potential capacity to 308.5 MW for wind and 60 MW for solar.

Among the wind projects are those of the Energy Development Corp. (87-MW wind farm in Burgos, Ilocos Norte), Alternergy Wind One Corp. (67.5-MW Pililla wind power project in Rizal), Trans-Asia Oil and Energy Development Corp. (54-MW wind farm in San Lorenzo, Guimaras), and PetroEnergy Resources Corp. (50-MW Nabas wind project in Aklan).

The solar-energy projects, on the other hand, are the Philippine Solar Farm-Leyte Inc.’s 30-MW solar project in Ormoc, Leyte, and another 30-MW solar project in Luzon that may start commercial operations by January 2015.

The private sector deserves credit for initiating power-generation projects aimed at making the country self-sufficient in energy. Mindanao’s current energy crunch should be a wake-up call for us to accelerate efforts at ensuring ample power supply as the country tries to sustain economic growth in the years ahead.

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Remarks by EastGreenfields.

While it is correct to address the power (or the impending lack of it) situation in the country... it is wanting that government should push or accelerate the implementation of Net Metering as per RA9513 (Renewable Energy Act of 2008).

And while the government is giving incentives to big power utility developers, none is given to end user such as tax credits, rebates or discounts for renewable energy equipment private individual installs for their own use. It is as if the government is leaving behind the individual's capacity to generate it's own power which contradicts the intent of RA9513.

The net metering will open up the opportunity for distributed power generation at the end user level itself. With net metering, end users can install for their own use solar panels within their roof tops or yards, with net energy surplus that will be credited in next billing. Without net metering it is an uphill battle winning over private home and small building owners to install themselves their own renewable energy generation system.

But even if net metering is not yet implemented, end user can still install solar roof top generation units but of limited scale only or less than 100% of their demand so that power export to the grid is prevented when the system is generating more than the local demand.

EastGreenfields has a number of roof top installation already and has the experience for micro generation units. Also EastGreenfields is more than ready to meet the requirements of Net Metering rules once it is implemented.

The real power to the people is when small people are allowed to generate their own energy requirement decreasing their dependency from the big dirty fossils based generated power and not to mention sky rocketing power bills.

For inquiries please email us: inquiry@eastgreenfields.com