Natural gas plants to play key role in PH, says DOE

Natural gas plants are “crucial” to ensuring that the country’s transmission grid is able withstand the entry of variable renewable energy (RE) technologies as the government intensifies its power transition efforts, the Department of Energy (DOE) said on Friday.

“Transitioning to clean energy to achieve the country’s energy security goals would also require a transition fuel capable of providing baseload generation that would fill in the gap when existing coal-fired plants start to retire,” the DOE explained in a statement.

The agency last week sought comments on a draft department circular prescribing the policy framework on the development of natural gas power generation facilities in the Luzon grid to support this shift.

According to the DOE, the draft policy would ensure “optimal allocation” of indigenous natural gas and encourage further development of the industry to provide reliable and “reasonably priced” power supply across the country.

It was likewise proposed that distribution utilities (DUs) source a percentage of their purchased supply from natural gas-fired power generation facilities to meet demand.

“Natural gas, therefore, is seen as a suitable transition fuel by which the private sector investments in this technology will be facilitated as a way to enable the viability of large RE capacity additions and ensure the reliability and security of the power system,“ the DOE said.

The National Grid Corp. of the Philippines, the country’s lone power grid operator, has repeatedly voiced out its concerns over the integration of variable RE technologies into the grid, as these may compromise the reliability of transmission lines.

Variable RE sources are clean energy technologies—such as solar and wind—that produce supply intermittently and depend on weather conditions to yield power, and would therefore require the transmission grid to balance the system when there is less load coming from these facilities.

The DOE noted that natural gas-fired power plants could complement the variability of RE technologies and provide balance in the transmission grid.

“With the eventual reduction of capacity from coal-fired power plants, natural gas will be the immediate option for the DUs either as baseload, midrange and peaking requirement because of its flexibility, and with much less harm to the environment,” it said.

This comes as consumer group Power for People Coalition decried the draft policy for favoring natural gas, a fossil fuel like coal and oil that emits carbon dioxide. INQ