Renewables

By Ducky Paredes | May 21, 2014

OUR President has always been critical of using renewables – wind and solar power -- to generate electricity. In a State of the Nation Address, he said: “Did they happen to mention that renewable energy is also more expensive–from the cost of building the plants to the eventual price of energy? Did they mention that it cannot provide the baseload–the capacity required to make sure brownouts do not occur?”  

Then, he really let loose: “If you put up a wind-powered plant, what do you do when there is no wind? If you put up a solar plant, what do you when the sky is cloudy? Let me be clear: I believe in renewable energy and we support its use, but there should also be baseload plants that can ensure a steady supply of electricity for our homes and industries. I wonder if those who are critical of the plants we want put up will be as noisy when they are busy fanning themselves during brownouts. All I am really saying is this: Let us help each other find a solution.”   Well, the problem is that our President has got it all wrong.

Dr. Jean Lindo, convenor of No to Coal (Network Opposed to Coal) Davao, and a member of the nationwide broad coalition, antiCOALition, noted that she found it “disappointing to hear a President make fun of Renewable Energy solution during his SONA which betrays his lack of knowledge on the science of clean and green energy.”   While she ignores the President’s silly remarks, she says that she forgives the President “since he is not a man of science.” However, she adds “a wise, conscientious leader would have consulted credible scientists rather than toe the line of corporate reductionism.”  

Lindo said that the President and his advisers “do not know that even if there is no wind in Malacañang he can still enjoy electricity because the Philippines has a total wind capacity that can produce 70,000 MW of potential installed capacity, according to a 1999 US-NREL (National Renewable Energy Laboratory) study and this estimate is conservative.”

“Even on a cloudy day over Malacañang, the solar panels can still capture the light and energy can be stored and they can enjoy energy still,” she said, adding that if the President and his advisers “do careful, independent search on Renewable Energy, they would surely bump into very good models of long-term, people-friendly, sustainable energy,” she said.  

“It is not funny that they have voluntarily turned themselves into political green jokes in favor of corporate reductionists,” Lindo added.  

Even now as he has just inaugurated the largest solar plant in the Visayas, the President is on record as saying:

“Renewable energy is still the most expensive component. It follows that if our entire energy mix is derived from renewable sources, then the price of electricity – which people are already complaining about today – will rise even more. Government therefore has to strike a balance between this, and our desire to attract more investments in renewable energy.”  

Our President or the ones who write his speeches (which he delivers without thinking) and those he consults with on renewables are dead wrong. They have to be.  

Germany and France, which have at least 50% less sunlight than the Philippines gets, have embraced solar and wind power, relying on them, on certain days, for as much as 50% of the electricity that they use.

Here is a report from a German Energy blog: “En route to its 2050 Energiewende goal of 80% of the nation’s power being supplied by renewables, especially spurred on by the phaseout of nuclear reactors, Germany broke another renewable energy record on Sunday, May 11, 2014. Europe’s biggest clean-energy market reached almost 75% renewable power market share on noon of that day.  

(Energiewende was the title of a 1980 publication by the German Öko-Institut, calling for the complete abandonment of nuclear and petroleum energy. On the February 16 of that year the German Federal Ministry of the Environment also hosted a symposium in Berlin, called Energiewende – Atomausstieg und Klimaschutz (Energy Transition: Nuclear Phase-Out and Climate Protection). The views of the Öko-Institut, initially strongly opposed, have gradually become common knowledge in energy policy. In the following decades the term expanded in scope; in its present form it dates back to at least 2002.)

*Energiewende designates a significant change in energy policy: The term encompasses a reorientation of policy from demand to supply and a shift from centralized to distributed generation (for example, producing heat and power in very small cogeneration units), which should replace overproduction and avoidable energy consumption with energy-saving measures and increased efficiency.)  

“As the Disruptive Renewables chart created by Renewables International shows, electricity prices went negative for much of the afternoon.  

“Renewables hit another record in the first quarter 2014 by supplying 27%–over one quarter–of Germany’s electricity demand. Bloomberg reports that the German Association of Energy and Water Industries (BDEW), which represents 1,800 companies, calculated that renewable generators produced 40.2 billion kWh of electricity this past quarter, up from 35.7 billion kWh in the same period last year. BDEW attributes the achievement to additional installations and favorable weather.

“Bernard Chabot, a well-known renewable energy consultant based in France, sees the 27% figure as indicative of renewable energy’s potential, as Kiley Kroh of ThinkProgress reports:  

“‘Once again, it was demonstrated that a modern electricity system such as the German one can already accept large penetration rates of variable but predictable renewable energy sources such as wind and solar PV power.’

 “Renewable energy in Germany has grown tremendously in the past decade, with wind and solar the nation’s most productive technologies. The 27% renewable power use amount is double the share of US electricity supplied by renewables recently.

“As reported in Solar Love in March, the ECLAREON PV Grid Parity Monitor of parity proximity indicated that the PV Levelized Cost of Electricity in Germany, Italy, and Spain has reached retail parity with the grids in those nations. Commercial solar power there is no longer more expensive than conventional energy sources.  

“Grid parity is defined as the moment when PV LCOE becomes competitive with grid electricity prices. Once PV grid parity is reached, electricity consumers would be better off by self-consuming PV-generated electricity instead of purchasing electricity from the grid.  

“Germany and Italy are better positioned than Spain, however, because of the latter nation’s lack of regulatory support for PV self-consumption. In fact, Spain has instituted retroactive solar feed-in tariff cuts and blocks individuals from using solar power not generated by the country’s official energy companies.

“Germany and Italy have comparatively low PV installation prices. Each boasts a competitive system, low discount rates, and high retail electricity prices. Mexico, well positioned, is likely to reach parity next, and France, with a relatively neutral regulatory profile, soon afterward.”

Even without total understanding of the situation, as proven by the colder countries in Europe that have less sun than the Philippines gets, a shift to solar and wind energy and other renewables is possible and costs can even improve and become more affordable. After all, France, Germany and Italy have gone the route and even lowered the cost to their consumers. If these countries deprived of the amounts of sun that we suffer from, can do that, why are we stuck with coal plants and oil-burning generators and the costs that they bring with them? Because those who control our energy policy are coal and oil men!

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