With the passage of the Renewable Energy Bill only awaiting President Arroyo's signature to make it law, we must now focus our energies in the development of our resources. In my opinion, significant effort must be made to develop Solar, Ocean and Enhanced Geothermal Technologies. Except for solar, all of these are capable of supporting baseload demand. I am biased towards these technologies as I believe are more sustainable compared to others. Biomass is faced with price issues as farmers are beginning to charge for the fuel. Biofuels are threatened with food vs fuel issues. Wind is very intermittent. Hydro is usually plagued with water use conflicts.
Solar should be an area of focus because of its portability. In off-grid and island areas, it remains to be a feasible solution for electrification. We must however focus on thin film technologies as silicon is extremely expensive. In the developing world, where land is usually not an issue, high efficiency cells may not be necessary. A thin film module would cost about $1 -1.50 /Watt as opposed to Si costing about $3-4/Watt. In the Philippines, the Visayas and Mindanao would be good areas for Photovoltaic power.
Ocean should also play a key role because of the archipelagic nature of our country. The tight straights between our islands make it ideal for marine current turbines to operate. The straight between Boracay and Caticlan, known to divers as "Channel Drift", would likely be a good spot for marine current power. There's also a feasibility ongoing in Cebu. Frankly, I'm sick and tired when people tell me that these are all in feasibility stage at the moment. We've been having feasibility studies all over the world for the last 20 years!
Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) is a good technology to work on. I envision this along the coasts situated along the Pacific. OTEC uses the temperature gradient between the surface and the deep ocean to run a "reverse" refrigeration cycle capable of running a turbine. An OTEC facility can also provide Sea Water Air Conditioning/ Refigeration (SWAC) Again, people say this is still in technical feasibility. How can a 100 year old technology still be in feasibility? In essence this technology is just a deep well connected to a heat exchanger! Can we not accelerate our learning by knowledge management and disciplined risk assessment?
Finally, there is enhanced geothermal technology. This technology requires digging upto 3-4kms below, injecting water and piping the resulting steam to turbines. This makes geothermal portable to areas with an ample supply of water. Gone are the limitations of putting your plant in mountains and protected areas. You can put your plant in the middle of lahar country in Region 3 as long as you can provide the water. The best sites would probably be near the coasts. If done correctly, there would be no waste water or heat as water used will be reinjected into the heat source.
What keeps the Philippines from achieving these technologies? A beggars mentality? A mindset of intellectual and financial inferiority? Being sigurista? If we are to remain enslaved by these, we will never have progress! We will be caught by the never ending cycle of foreign debt. We have to pass the hat around and develop our resources for ourselves. Instead of wasting our money in gambling, lets put our money into this where the odds are better.
The Irish have a phrase "Sinn Fein" meaning "Our Own". While the phrase has been associated with the "troubles" in Ulster, translating the phrase in Filipino removes its bleak flavor. "Sariling Atin" brings the hope of the sunrise and the vitality of the rainbow.
Sa paglilinang ng "Sariling Atin", tiyak na darating ang pag-asang parang bukang liwayway. Kasunod dito ang malabahagharing kulay, ng buhay sa bansang tunay na malaya.
No...I'm not talking about the $700B bailout bill that was shot down yesterday. I'm talking about the proposed Renewable Energy Act of the Philippines. After 20 years, this Clean Energy measure finally passed both houses! The Renewable Energy Coalition got the it to pass in the House of Representatives last June. Last Monday, the measure passed on 3rd reading in the Senate. In the next few weeks, congress will convene a bicameral conference committee to resolve contentious provisions of this measure. I will really be keeping an eye on the netmetering provision as the house will probably push for a 1% peak demand cap in contracts. My friend from Greenpeace will watch the fixed tariff provision.
What does this mean to the ordinary homeowner. It means that Renewable Energy home systems will be more affordable because of fiscal and operational incentives. ROI for systems will reduce significantly. The law will also mean that a certain % of the power you get comes from renewable energy.
Anyway...congratulations to the RE Coalition led by Cates Maceda. Special recognition goes to Rina Bernabe for all the legwork and coordination.
At the insistence of a friend, I am starting a series of blogs about the Renewable Energy Bill pending in the Philippine Senate. This measure has been around since 1988 and has never been passed into law. We have finally passed in the lower House. Progress in the Senate has been slow because this chamber easily gets sidetracked into other issues.
Anyway, today we talk about netmetering. This is what I can an operational incentive (vs. fiscal) because the benefits come during the operation of the renewable energy facility. This incentive allows for a power consumer to sell excess self-generated power into the grid. It is accomplished by replacing your watthour meter with one that turns back when you generate excess power. Another way of doing it is by adding a second meter that records excess power generated. At the billing date, power generated is credited into one's electric bill (i.e. Cost consumed - Cost generated = bill). Of course, they only credit generation cost.
This incentive has been a key contributor to the success of solar in other countries like the US and Germany. Netmetering reduces system cost by about 40%. I did some calculations and discovered that it also reduces the ROI of a Photovoltaic system from 20-22years to 6-8years. Why? Netmetering precludes the need for batteries gives the extra revenue stream.
The renewable energy bill passed in the Philippine House of Representatives puts a cap of 1% of peak demand in a grid. For Luzon, this would be about 120MW. Why should a law have a quantitive limit, when one can simply put the verbage "subject to technical limititations". (I presented this in the House Technical Working Group and got a concession, only to find it gone in a future version of the bill.GRRR!!!) The speculation is that private distribution utilities are behind this. The Senate version does not have such limit particularly also because of the support of Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile, the father of the Philippine Deregulated Power market. (As a lobbyist, I also learned my lesson here. Never let legislators off the hook. Appreciate the support of Sen's Juan Miguel Zubiri and Edgardo J. Angara and their respective staff.) It is also interesting to note that California initially had the same 1% cap but had this amended to 2% in order to meet the Million Solar home initiative.
Having said all this, it is essential that this measure is passed asap (considering purely technical limitations only). It provides for better access to clean, secure and sustainable power to our people.
OTEC or Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion is probably one of the most promising energy technologies for tropical countries. It utilizes warm surface water to "evaporate" a refrigerant and cold deep ocean water to condense it. The evaporation of the refrigerant produces a high pressure gas that can drive a turbine. So far literature has reported less than 20% efficiency but this may be due to the fact that this technology didn't get much support by developed countries.
