The plan for renewable energy is good... but!

Last Sunday I watched a very interesting show on

ANC

, a Forum on Renewable Energy with Tina Monzon Palma and the only guests I knew were my good friends Juan Pocholo Bernad, vice-president of Aboitiz Equities Ventures (AEV) and Department of Energy (DoE) Secretary Rene Almendras with three other guests. The problem with a show that has too many guests is they cannot express themselves clearly due to lack of material time.

The debate on renewable energy began a long time ago, when people asked, “Why don’t we tap the sun or the wind for it is free?” I always hear these comments over the radio from people who insist on these new technologies. Perhaps they get their information from magazines like Popular Science or Popular Mechanics. I too have read many of these articles on renewable energy and yes... we all dream that someday all these new technologies would power our homes for a fraction of the cost that we are paying today.

What drives us crazy is that recent a report showed the Philippines having the highest cost of energy even compared to Japan which is one of the most expensive places in the world to live. So when President Benigno “P-Noy” Aquino III formally launched the National Renewable Energy Program (NREP) last June, he literally brought hope that finally his government was addressing our spiraling energy costs and insufficient supply of electricity.

US Ambassador Harry Thomas Jr. quickly expressed his support for this program, because America too is investing heavily on the development of renewable energy. I recall US President George Bush saying that in 10 years America will be a leader in the manufacturing of solar panels. Well I haven’t heard US companies having started to bring down the prices of solar panels.

So when P-Noy declared, “Renewable energy will fuel our future. The National Renewable Energy Program today points us in the right direction in terms of finding long-term and sustainable energy sources.” I fully concur with him... but how deep into the future is he talking about? From what we’ve been reading about the cost of renewable sources, prices are expected to drop in 10 years. But the problem we are facing right now is the Aquino administration wants to adopt this program today, even though the cost of solar or wind energy is ridiculously expensive and totally unreliable?

Aboitiz Equities Ventures (AEV) is a power company that has also embraced green technology with gusto! Last May, during the annual big Bike convention in Davao City, rather than join the fun run on our bikes, I opted to go and see the 42.5 MW Mini-Hydro power plant operated by Hedcor-Sibulan, Inc., a subsidiary of Aboitiz Power Corp. (APC).

On that very day I was given a tour of this renewable energy plant, the Business Section of The Philippine STAR headlined a report that APC was prepared to construct a P25-billion 300MW circulating Fluidized-bed Coal-fired power plant in Southern Davao and that Aboitiz Power wants to fast track this project because of the huge demand for power in Mindanao. We already have a similar 300MW Coal-fired power plant in Cebu, which is known to us as “Cleanergy” or a “Clean Coal” technology that the Global Power Corporation and the Cebu Energy Development Corp. (CEDC) built in Sangi, Toledo City Cebu. This “Cleanergy” was developed by the Formosa Power, which operates clean coal-fired plants in Taiwan... partners of APC.

What’s so great about the mini-hydro plant in Sibulan is that it only costs P6/kilowatt hour. This is why Pocholo Bernad asks, “Why pay P18/kWh for solar and ocean or P10/kWh for wind energy when you can get hydro at P6 or biomass at P7/kWh?” Indeed I agree that we are a poor country suffering high power rates, yet we want to embark on a renewable energy program that would cost more per kilowatt-hour than what we presently pay.

We have to ram home our point that the Philippines is not behind in the use of renewable energy technology. Mindanao already has many hydro plants, while Luzon’s Ambuklao Dam also run by the Aboitiz Power is set to be fully operational this year. The Visayas always had geothermal energy and we are the second largest users of geothermal in the world! Sec. Almendras clearly pointed out that the renewable energy mix in this country is already at 38.5 percent while for power generation is a high of 53 percent.

So why force the issue on expensive renewable energy plants if and when our people can hardly afford it? As Pocholo Bernad suggests, “If some people really want solar, they can pay for it themselves through the green energy option, without dragging their neighbors to help pay for their party. A good example of putting your money where your mouth is.” Perhaps the best example is in the car industry. Twenty-five years ago we embarked on a People’s Car program because Filipinos could not afford ordinary cars. Ten years later, that program became irrelevant. We can do a similar thing with the NREP program and in ten years the majority of our power plants will already be green!

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