The National Renewable Energy Board (NREB), which was tasked by the government to draft the Non-fiscal incentives part of the Philippine Renewable Energy Act of 2008 (Republic Act 9513) announced that they are wrapping up and the said guidelines will be ready for the next administration that will takeover right after the elections. June 30 is the projected date that they will finish drafting the non-fiscal incentives of the RE Law.
At almost the same time last year the implementing rules and regulations for the Philippine Renewable Energy Act had also been passed.
The said guidelines were announced to cover the implementation of renewable portfolio standard (RPS), net metering, green energy option, feed-in-tariff (FIT) and renewable energy market.
The RPS guidelines states that distribution companies (like MERALCO) have to source a certain percentage of their power RPS from renewable energy power plants and that they will also require priority dispatch of the energy they produce to the said distribution companies. Meaning that they will be in the head of the line when distribution companies are buying electricity from the grid.
Net Metering is probably the most awaited guideline for some households who have their own solar energy source. Because it allows them to gain credits from the renewable energy they generate for their own use to offset their power bills.
“Net metering is if you have, for example, solar panels and 5%-10% of your consumption is already produced by that, that would be metered and priced at the FIT (feed-in tariff) and then it would be deducted from your other meter, which is your Meralco (Manila Electric Co.)
Feed In Tariff (FIT) could be what would have consumers angry about renewable energy in the near future because it states that it will guarantee a fixed price for the energy being produced by a renewable energy provider. Coupled with RPS that guarantees that renewable energy will have priority purchase, it could ensure that electricity prices still won’t go down despite it being sourced already from clean, non-fossil fuel based renewable energy. This is common practice however by governments to set guaranteed prices as an incentive for the private sector to invest in the energy business.
The Green energy option is something I don’t know how the distribution utility will be able to implement. According to this it provides the consumer the choice to source their preferred amounts of renewable energy sourced electricity from their utilities.
The last, called the renewable energy market, basically provides a slot in the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM) for the trading of renewable energy sources.
Of the listed Non-Fiscal Incentives, FIT will be the first to be implemented with its guidelines expected to be finalized by this month. The draft rules of the Feed In Tariff system had already been released earlier this year
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Category: Law, Clean Energy, Investing
