The Market Monitor Minding the Nation's Business
By Riza Lozada
Diversified Phinma Corp. has completed preparatory work to build new wind power plants to expand its wind-generation capacity by 40 megawatts (MW) in the Visayas grid, but a top official of the company said it needed guidelines from government on feed-in tariff to pursue such projects.
“We continue to look for opportunities in the renewable energy. We are ready to expand our wind portfolio. We have a project in Guimaras, but there are also other wind sites there that we have already done a lot of explorations and wind
tests. Things will depend on how the government decides
to move forward on renewable energy,” Phinma President and CEO Ramon del Rosario told The Market Monitor during the company’s recent 60th anniversary celebration.
Del Rosario said the feed-in-tariff (FIT) structure would determine the future development of wind energy in the country.
“We still need the feed-in tariff structure. It will depend on how the government decides to move forward on renewable energy. We cannot do wind projects without the feed-in tariff,” he said.
The FIT is called clean energy cashback and is paid to developers of renewable energy but is collected from consumers as part of their monthly electricity bills.
Asked whether Phinma submitted recommendations on the FIT rate, del Rosario said, “I don’t think we took it upon ourselves to make a proposal (on the FIT rate).”
Del Rosario said Phinma is waiting for the government “to tell us the policy, and then we can decide whether we can develop projects within those parameters because it is really the government that should tell us what to do.”
“Working with other industry players, we’ve seen indications of what we think is a reasonable rate,” he added.
“We are hoping that they (the government) will come out with a reasonable rate,” he said.
Phinma Chairman Oscar Hilado said the company would strengthen its energy portfolio, noting that it has partnerships with the Ayala Corp. and the Marubeni Group for power projects.
Hilado, who has been with Phinma for five decades, also said the company was expecting that the government would give a “reasonable rate” for renewable energy such as wind power to make it viable.
Hilado said Phinma’s Guimaras wind project would be expanded to provide 40 megawatts (MW) in additional capacity under a project to be built in Sibunag town in Guimaras.
He said, however, the planned expansion would depend on the government’s renewable energy policy and the FIT rate structure.
Del Rosario also mentioned another wind development site in the Ilocos area but he did not elaborate, saying plan which is still in the blueprint stage.
In the total energy portfolio of Phinma, Del Rosario said the contribution of renewable sources was still “very small,” with its 54 MW wind generation project in Guimaras and its geothermal power plants throughout the country, which generate a total of 25 MW with expansion expected to increase capacity to 32 MW.
Phinma also operates coal-fueled generating plants in Calaca, Batangas, which are its biggest base load plants.
“Coal energy, that is our biggest baseload. Our only two lines in Calaca. These are through joint ventures with South Luzon Thermal, SLTEC with Ayala and Marubeni,” Del Rosario noted.
Del Rosario said that based on power projects in the pipeline, the country will have sufficient energy supply all over the archipelago until 2020.
“We ourselves do not see any problem with power supply in the foreseeable future until 2020 and beyond. Certainly until 2020, our expectations are that there will be very sufficient energy supply all over the Philippines,” del Rosario said.