AboitizPower urges ‘balanced’ energy mix to avert power outage

By Alena Mae S. Flores – October 4, 2024, 7:50 pm
from manilastandard.net

Aboitiz Power Corp. on Friday proposed a “balanced approach” to energy security with 50 percent coming from renewables and 50 percent from baseload power plants to avert power shortage.

“We need to make sure that the coal power plants, the fossil fuel power plants that we have will continue to run and support our baseload. Without that, we might end up going back to 1998. We might end up like Mindanao. We’re so dependent on a single power source,” AboitizPower chief engineering and project officer Don Paulino said during the EJAP-Aboitiz Power Renewable Energy Forum.

He said the baseload capacity supply “will be really dependent on available technology, but also the affordability.”

Paulino said other power companies also made investments on innovation including battery technology and AI (artificial intelligence) integration to help increase plant reliability and availability.

“This is important to really think about as an industry. We are now applying AI in our power plants in Visayas and in Mindanao,” Paulino said.

“Availability is one of the key drivers. And that’s part of our transition story. Not because we want to lend them the plants that are burning fuel. What we want to do is to actually allow them to contribute to the energy transition by increasing their availability. And that’s why innovations like AI technology, making our power plants smart, is an important part of what we’re trying to do now,” he said.

Energy Secretary Raphael Lotilla said in the same forum that the government is not pursuing RE development “only for RE sake.”

“We are pursuing RE because we want to achieve more energy independence for the country. And in that way, we will be able to secure a bright future, not only for this generation, but for future generations,” he said.

He said the Philippines should be more open to different technologies and alternatives to meet the anticipated increase in demand.

“We cannot close ourselves to one or several technologies. What we do is we set minimum standards, whether they are environmental standards or standards of safety or technical standards. And if they meet the standards, then we should remain open to them. And that’s why even in the case of nuclear power, we remain open precisely because there are also developments that are taking place in nuclear technology that would make them safer and cheaper,” he said.

He said banks and the financial institutions may grant loans to finance the needs of existing and operational coal-fired power generation facilities or any new coal-fired power projects which are considered by the DOE as committed projects, among other criteria.

Lotilla said the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas’ recently issued a clarification on Memorandum 2024-028 addressed to all banks.

The BSP issued the circular attaching Frequently Asked Questions to provide guidance on the financing of excluded activities and coal-fired power projects in relation to the adoption of the Sustainable Financial Financial Taxonomy guidelines.

“The central bank, the BSP has clarified that financing coal or fossil fuel projects is considered an excluded activity and therefore outside of the scope of the guidelines. BSP supervised financial institutions may finance these excluded activities under the Sustainable Finance Taxonomy Guidelines. And consistent with this and the relevant policies and guidelines of the DOE, the Sustainable Financing Taxonomy Guidelines does not prohibit,” he said.

“It is calibrated to meet the realities on the ground that our economy needs the additional power to be able to meet an average 6 percent GDP growth annually, we have to grow the power supplies and demand and generation capacity will also have to grow by an average of 5 percent annually. And since renewable energy cannot provide all of that, nor can provide the balancing source of power at this time, then it has to be the fossil fuels, particularly natural gas that will provide that,” Lotilla said.