'Seize the Wind'

The Philippines will be the first developing country to submit its international commitments on what it will do to ease climate change.

It is committed to submit an Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) to the 2015 United Nations Climate Conference by June—the first pledge by a developing country.

With no significant deposits of fossil fuels, the Philippines has few competitive advantages in clean and renewable energy such as geothermal, hydro, wind and solar. 

Tapping these alternative energy sources will lessen its continued reliance on imported fuel that has made Philippine electricity rates among the highest in Asia.  

About 70 percent of Philippine electricity is currently generated from fossil-fuels; 90 percent of coal and oil are imported.

The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF)-Philippines believes that increasing support for renewable energy will lower Philippine electricity prices.

The Department of Energy (DOE) has recently supported an increase in the installation targets for solar energy under the Feed-in Tariff regime. 

Under the Feed-in Tariff system, renewable energy projects are guaranteed a rate for the electricity they produce per kilowatt hour that will be held constant for the next 20 years. The Energy Regulatory Commission will conduct periodic reviews to adjust rates for foreign exchange and inflation.

This means that the price of electricity from renewable energy will continuously become cheaper over time. 

Unlike fossil-fuels where VAT is applied to add to existing cost, renewable energy has been given a zero percent VAT rate. 

The WWF says the DOE now has the “prime opportunity” to generate an INDC by increasing the share of renewable energy in the country’s power mix. 

The INDCs are country-wide climate change mitigation and adaptation commitments that will be submitted to the climate conference to be held from November 30 to December 11 in Paris. World leaders gathered in Lima last December for the 20th Conference of Parties designed to set the stage for strong climate change agreements this year.  

WWF believes that with the increase in solar energy, an additional increase in wind energy installation targets is a firm, next step that the DOE can commit to. 

In 2001, the Electric Power Industry Reform Act (EPIRA) was implemented to limit the cost of electricity. At that time, the Philippine power generation mix was composed of 37.29 percent renewable energy and 62.71 percent fossil-fuels. 

A decade later, the share of renewable energy has since dropped to 28.37 percent. 

“Most of our power rate jumps were caused by generation cost hikes,” says Gia Ibay, who heads climate change initiatives by WWF-Philippines. “With fossil-fuel prices continually rising due to dwindling supplies and soaring demand, the cost of our electricity shall rise even further. The best solution is to use renewable energy resources to shield us from the cost volatility of fossil fuels.”

Many renewable energy plants can be directly embedded on key areas to further reduce the cost of electricity, eliminating the need for transmission and distribution lines to deliver electricity from power plants to households.

The International Energy Agency forecasts a steady increase in the cost of coal and other fossil-fuels over the next decade. (SciencePhilippines)