The Philippine Department of Energy (DOE) announced that they were able get about P90 billion worth of Renewable Energy contracts signed with at least 18 groups of foreign and local investors.
With this they are projecting that 40% of the country will be powered by renewable energy based power plants with a capacity of 9,147 MW by 2013. Current Renewable Energy capacity of the Philippines is at 4,449 MW.
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Conal Holdings Corp. (CHC) owned by the Alcantara Family announced plans to put up clean energy projects in the Visayas and Mindanao region with a combined capacity of 100MW. Specifically the projects will be hydro-electric in nature.
These projects are:
Conal Holdings Corp., an Alson’s Group of Companies subsidiary, is attracting foreign investment for their carbon sink project that will go hand in hand with their $450 million coal-fired power plant at Maasim in Sarangani Province, Mindanao.
The carbon sink is designed to absorb and offset the carbon spewed by the Coal fired power plant. The project will cost about $7.5 million and will cover an area of 8,000 hectares with trees that can absorb a lot of carbon.
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Dept of Energy (DOE) Secretary, Angelo Reyes, said that although current clean coal technology is not perfect because it doesn’t really remove CO2 from the burnt coal they have to consider this power source necessary in order to prevent the looming energy crisis that the Philippines is about to face in 2009, most especially in the Visayas region. Depending on the size and location of the plant, it can take anywhere from 2-4 years to commission a coal fire power plant.
Clean coal technology reduces the sulfur and nitrous oxide released into the air which are harmful to the ozone layer.
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James Hansen, Top Scientist for NASA, said that the situation that the world is facing right now against Global Warming and Climate Change has long passed acceptable levels. There are only a few decades remaining before the more massive effects of global warming start taking shape. These will be in the form of extinction, ecosystem collapse and dramatic rise in world sea levels.
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According to Opposition Sen. Allan Peter Cayetano, The Philippine President failed to ensure that the different fuel sources will be taxed uniformly in the modified Electric Power Industry Reform Act (Epira).
According to the report:
The government collects taxes equivalent to four centavos per kilowatt hour for power generated by imported coal, but 30 centavos to 70 centavos for geothermal and P1.30 for natural gas.
