PCCI to gov’t: Don’t promise lower power rates

The Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry is asking the Department of Energy to just keep power rates at their current levels and not slap any additional charges, particularly the feed-in tariff (FIT) rates for renewable energy.

“Don’t promise us a reduction in power rates. Just make them stay as is and we’ll be very happy. Don’t make them go any higher,” PCCI president Francis Chua told reporters in an interview, addressing Energy Secretary Jose Rene Almendras.

“Any project that will increase energy costs should not be pursued. Think many times before approving anything that will increase power costs,” he added.

Chua said Almendras had always promised to do everything possible to drive power rates down, to make local industries more competitive and to ease consumer burden.

For the business sector, he said they could live with the current rates, as long as no additional charges would be imposed.

Chua was referring to the FIT rates for renewable energy, which would drive up electricity rates by 12.75 centavos a kilowatt-hour (kWh) if the proposal would be approved.

According to the National Renewable Energy Board petition filed with the Energy Regulatory Commission, solar developers and ocean energy project proponents would enjoy the highest FIT rates of P17.95 a kWh and P17.65 a kWh, respectively. Investors in wind development would be given a FIT rate of P10.37 a kWh; for biomass, P7 a kWh; and for hydro, P6.15 a kWh.

Payment for the use of clean energy will come from a uniform per-kWh charge, dubbed FIT Allowance (FIT-All), which will be collected from all electricity end-users. The FIT-All amounted to 12.75 centavos a kWh and would be borne by all power users by 2014, when all expected RE projects would have already gone on-line.

“We’re not against RE. We’re actually supporting RE. What we’re objecting to is the FIT. Solar and wind, for example, don’t put those on the grid. The best way to use these technologies is right in the household,” Chua said.

In response, Almendras said the government was trying to be “as efficient as possible” in granting the FIT.

“We can’t lump all RE technologies together. We just came from conferences abroad and we acknowledged that some RE models can already be implemented [while some cannot]. For those who are pro-RE, we’re telling them to take it slow because some of the technologies really are still too expensive to roll out,” Almendras said.

“In the spirit of true democracy, we are sorry if they feel like we are not doing anything. We are not saying that we have done everything. There really is much work to be done. But we are not giving up. We are doing everything we can, and we are continuously encouraging investments to the right context,” he added.