The Department of Energy (DOE) said 8,000 megawatts (MW) of electricity will be needed in the country by 2028 when peak power demand may hit 25,000 MW from the current 17,000 MW.
The DOE said of the 8,000 MW, 43 percent is eyed to come from renewable energy (RE) sources.
“(The 43 percent will be from) pure RE at this stage but we’re looking precisely at combinations of RE and batteries where the battery storage with sources from RE will also be considered as RE… More than 27 percent will be coming from natural gas, then of course we will still have coal. Remember, our coal-fired power plants, many of them are young. While some are old, many of them are young and therefore there’s still useful life ahead of them,” said DOE Secretary Raphael Lotilla, at the sidelines of a post-State of the Nation Address event in Pasay city on Tuesday.
Lotilla said some projects utilizing coal technology were committed before the DOE implemented a moratorium on new coal-fired power plant projects in 2020.
Lotilla added natural gas and coal may still be developed by 2028.
“Developments in technology are moving fast and I hope they (proponents) move faster,” Lotilla said.
He said there are proposals of co-firing of old coal-fired power plants with ammonia. New technologies in the US use coal-fired facilities to produce graphene with hydrogen as a by-product.
“Let’s hope that these mature in time,” Lotilla said.
