President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. vowed to increase the country’s renewable energy resources and “re-examine the strategy for building nuclear power plants” to ensure reliable supply and bring down the price of electricity.
“At present, our demand for energy far exceeds our reliable supply. We must increase the level of energy production. We must look at every possible option that would be appropriate for the Philippine situation,” he said in his first State of the Nation Address on Monday.
“We must examine the entire transmission and distribution for finding ways to lower the price of energy to the consumer and to the industry. We must expand the network of our transmission lines while examining the scheme to improve the operation of our electrical cooperatives. All this in aid of reducing energy cost especially but not limited to households.”
Marcos said the construction of new nuclear power plants can be done through public-private partnership agreements “as funding in this period is limited.”
“We will comply of course with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) regulations for nuclear power plants as they have been strengthened after Fukushima. In the area of nuclear power, there have been new technologies developed that allow smaller scale modular nuclear plants and other derivations,” he added.
The President maintained that the search for new power sources should always be with an eye to improving the energy mix supply between traditional and renewable sources.
“In the interim, natural gas will hold the key. We will provide investment incentives by clarifying the uncertain policy in upstream gas, particularly in the area close to Malampaya,” he said.
“This requires clarification of the processes and review of the service contracts policy,” he added.
Marcos said renewable energy technology is progressing rapidly, which is appropriate for the Philippines.
“We have already begun windmill power. We are now expanding very quickly our solar power production,” he said, noting that the World Bank has estimated at least 255 gigawatts of offshore and onshore wind potential for the country by 2030.
He said solar power also has a strong potential to address demand due to its increased efficiency, and it is “practically almost everywhere in the Philippines all year round.”
Jay Layug, president of the Developers of Renewable Energy for AdvanceMent, Inc. (DREAM), said the group fully supports Marcos’ pivot to renewables as his central energy policy.
“We have been pushing the previous administration to transition to renewables instead of sticking to conventional sources of energy to no avail.
Now, we are suffering from high oil and coal prices as we have added more of them to the power mix. It is time and long overdue,” Layug said.
He said DREAM would collaborate well with the Marcos administration and Energy Secretary Rafael Lotilla.
For its part, the climate and energy group Institute for Climate and Sustainable Cities (ICSC) agreed with the need to construct new power plants and use more renewable energy.
“The Philippines has one of the lowest electricity per capita consumption in ASEAN. It is not because we are energy efficient; it is because of insufficient and undependable power supply,” Pete Maniego Jr., ICSC senior policy advisor said.
“Renewable energy is abundant in the Philippines. Solar and wind plants have the advantage of lower levelized cost of electricity compared to fossil fuel plants. Renewable sources have proven to be more reliable too. If we are to be energy independent, renewable energy is the only and logical way to go,” he added.