The Philippines continues to attract foreign investors interested to develop the country’s offshore wind (OSW) resources following the removal of foreign ownership restrictions on renewable energy (RE). The latest foreign firm awarded a service contract is a 100 percent owned one called the Copenhagen Infrastructure New Markets Fund (CINMF), affiliated with the Danish Fund Manager Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP) – a global leader in OSWQ.
Per the Department of Energy (DOE) bulletin, there are already 3 projects have a combined capacity of 2,000 megawatts (MW) located in the provinces of Camarines Norte and Camarines Sur, offshore of Northern Samar, and offshore of Pangasinan and La Union. Accordingly, each project has signed for a 25-year operating period.
The terms of the service contracts states that “these agreements represent an additional strategic investment and a firm commitment to strengthen the renewable energy sector in the country, particularly the development of OSW,” per DOE management.
Some of the advantages foreseen by DOE, after approving the service contracts with the 3 CINMF funded projects once operational are the following:
– development of local supply demand chain;
– creation of about 4,500 jobs during the development and operations;
– generate enough power to
– supply about 1 million households; and,
– offset about 2.9 million tons in CO2 emissions annually.
MY COMMENT:
We in science and technology are elated to find S/T in action such as tapping the OSW resources in the Philippines. These bountiful resources have attracted foreign investors in R, latest being few 100 percent foreign-owned like the CINMF. Personally elated for the inclusion of the Northern Samar Offshore in the initial 3 CINMF funded OSW projects.
ooo000ooo
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Darkness
People are now being conditioned that power outages are in the offing. The alleged cause is the diminishing capacity of power supply from electric companies. The reduced power generation is projected to peak this summer when power demand is high. The situation has been a perennial cycle that has not been given apt solutions.
Basically, the problem is technical requiring technical solutions that could be solved by our expert electrical engineers. Unfortunately, external power, chiefly from the political, and economic forces outweighs the technical aspect of the power problem.
What appears unconscionably unthinkable is how the power supply would be greatly affected when the country has other sources, mainly, geothermal energy, power generated by windmills, and solar power. These could produce a power reserve that could serve as a buffer when the country would need it most. We could not blame people for complaining about a hot issue that had not been given priority by the government.
It appears that power play by politicians and the strong interference by big business individuals and entities had set appears as the national direction insofar as power and energy management of the country is concerned. The unwritten policy is skewed towards the interest of big business to the detriment of the consuming public.
Already, people who deserve better public service from electric and water utilities are placed in a helpless situation as they get into the proverbial fire out of the frying pan. The heated condition in homes pushes people to go out to beaches and malls to rid themselves of the scorching heat at home.
Those who have access to beaches are able to breathe fresh air and find bonding time with family members. But the hours spent away from home result in an increase in power consumption at the malls and beaches where people converge until power is restored. In the end, the poor and hapless consumers are always at the losing end of this cyclic problem.
comments to: alellema@yahoo.com