Great news as the Consolidated Congress and Senate Philippine Renewable Energy Bill has been approved by Congress paving the way for the President to sign the Bill into Law. The Senate approved this Bill yesterday. The consolidated version is a merger of House Bill No. 4193 and Senate Bill No. 2046.
If the Bill is not signed by the President within 30 days it will automatically become a law.
This paves the way for the Department of Energy to prioritize alternative energy investors in the country by means of fiscal incentives.
Renewable Energy is harnessing natural sources of energy in a sustainable manner without depleting it. Examples of sources of clean energy sources are solar, wind, hydro, geothermal and wave.
Benefits of the Bill include:
- Carbon credits generated from renewable energy sources will be free from taxes. A 10% corporate income tax, as against the regular 30%, is also provided once the income tax holiday expires.
- Energy self-sufficiency to 60% by 2010 from 56.6% in 2005, by tapping resources like solar, wind, hydropower, ocean and biomass energy
- Renewable energy facilities will also be given a 1.5% realty tax cap on original cost of equipment and facilities to produce renewable energy.
- The bill also prioritizes the purchase, grid connection and transmission of electricity generated by companies from renewable energy sources.
- Power generated from renewable energy sources will be value added tax-exempt.
- A net metering scheme will give capable consumers the option to generate their own power. Net metering will allow renewable energy producers to earn from the power they contribute to the grid, and are also charged for electricity drawn from the grid.
