Solar power to lead PH RE goal

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AC Energy said solar energy will be the top contributor in government’s goal of making renewable energy (RE) account for 35 percent of the country’s power mix by 2030, according to Eric Francia, company president and chief executive officer.

In a webinar hosted by the Clean Energy Investment Accelerator and the National Renewable Energy Board yesterday, Francia said solar power plants currently have the lowest levelized cost of electricity, globally and locally.

While solar power has become competitive in price, it still has some reliability issues as it is dependent on sunlight.

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AC Energy said solar stands the best chance to attract more investments due to its flexibility in terms of size and location. Solar has also become a predictable as a fuel source with the use of battery storage.

“When the RE law was passed, RE was already 34 percent of output and today, we’re just at 21 percent,” said Francia, citing that coal and gas plants’ capacity had grown to 7 gigawatts (GW) versus 2,000 megawatts (MW) of renewables.

To hit the 35 percent RE contribution to the overall power mix, Francia said around 20 GW worth of renewable projects must be built in the next decade: 15 GW from solar, 3 GW from wind, 1 GW from hydro, 500 MW from geothermal and another 500 MW from biomass.

“These are just assumptions… but I’m willing to bet that this mix stands the best chance of success,” Francia said.

He cited the Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS) as one of the key enablers in re-igniting interest for RE investments.

RPS, which will be implemented soon, will require distribution utilities (DUs) to source a certain percentage of their total power supply from renewable sources.

However, Francia said the current mandate of the RPS to enforce a minimum 1 percent annual increment on the amount of RE power that must be tapped by DUs should be improved in order to reach the government’s goal by 2030.

“It’s a good start but … this will only get us to 26 percent share of output, falling way short of the 35 percent aspiration… If we are serious in achieving 35 percent of RE by 2030, then the 1 percent would have to be adjusted sometime in 2025 to 2.5 percent annual increment…which is basically the 20 GW portfolio that we’re talking about,” he added.

Department of Energy showed as of end-2019, the country had a total installed on-grid capacity of 25,531 MW.

RE contributed a total of 7, 399 MW with only 921 MW coming from solar sources.

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