By Juzel L. Danganan
MANILA, July 19 (PNA) — Philippine Solar Power Alliance (PSPA) President Tetchi Capellan has called for a review on the Feed-in-Tariff (FIT) rate to avoid the proposed policy that limits the allowable capacity per developer.
In a chance interview, Capellan said “the role of government is to regulate the market. Not by installation size — but by tariff — that’s why the FIT has to be reviewed. If they see that the PhP 8.69 per kilowatthour (kWh) rate is high, then review it again.”
The FIT rate backs developers to receive a certain rate for 20 years, given it reaches the FIT deadline of March 2016.
She added a dialogue is important to clarify the implementation of the capacity limit policy.
Capellan stressed the Department of Energy (DOE) shouldn’t have approved the service contracts for projects that has a capacity from 70-100 Megawatts (MW) — if it will implement such policy.
She also said PSPA is calling for a FIT installation target of 2 Gigawatts (GW), which was an estimate from the DOE approved service contracts of 1.7 GW.
The National Renewable Energy Board (NREB), which is composed of the private and public sector, proposed the policy implementation of a capacity limit per each developer. It has proposed a 50 MW cap for solar projects per developer, while the limit for wind is considered at 100 MW.
NREB serves as the advisory body to the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) and DOE.
Capellan pointed out PSPA will seek the commercial basis for the proposed 50-MW solar projects, adding recovering the investment cost might not be possible due to its intermittent feature and the terrain of the project. (PNA)