DOE mulls tapping World Bank for renewable energy sector

As the Aquino administration tries to unravel the best way of putting in place the portfolio standards and feed-in tariff rate on renewable energy, the Department of Energy (DOE) is thinking of tapping the World Bank (WB) to attract more investors into the sector. "The idea is to really try to find the best possible way to encourage the investment into renewable energy that's needed without overdoing it by punishing the consumers," Energy Secretary Jose Rene Almendras told reporters in an interview. “There's a good economic balance that's being looked for," he said. "Fortunately for us, the Renewable Coalition has invited a very powerful resource person from the World Bank who has had experience on both implementations," Almendras said. A World Bank official, who cannot be named because he is not authorized to speak on the matter, told GMANews.TV the multi-lateral lender “has several renewable energy experts." Almendras wants to invite the WB expert “to sit with the National Renewable Energy Board (NREB) and the Technical Working Group." The experts are not necessarily in the Philippines but in various places in the region and in the US, and can be informed once the bank has received an official invitation, according to the WB official. A standards portfolio is a market-based policy that requires suppliers to make a portion of their electric supply in renewable energy form. The feed-in tariff, on the other hand, is a policy that guarantees payments to sources of renewable energy for every kilowatt-hour produced. Experts believe only with such policies in place can the renewable energy sector succeed. Almendras said the delays in the implementation of the feed-in tariff were a result of NREB’s reconstitution. "The NREB reconstitution took a while. We went through a real consultation process with the groups that were supposed to be represented. The objective was to find the most appropriate representation for each of the groups that have a stake in the NREB," he said. The board also asked the Energy Regulatory Commission to extend until March 31, 2011 the final numbers for the feed-in tariff on renewable energy. The original deadline was Aug. 4, 2010. "We need to acknowledge that there are delays on that side. We will push as much as we can. We will try our very best to meet those deadlines as best as we can. Those targets are very reasonable," Almendras said. The Energy department has so far approved P87.735 billion of renewable energy projects since the 2008 Renewable Energy Law was passed. — VS/KBK, GMANews.TV