Energy favoritism by legislation
Going through the Economy section of BusinessWorld last week, I checked these four energy-related reports:
1. “NGCP declares ‘yellow alert’ for Luzon power grid” (March 06);
2. “Bill tapping Malampaya fund to pay down Napocor debt hurdles bicameral session” (March 08);
3. “First Gen’s Batangas LNG terminal project cleared by DoE” (March 08); and
4. “Power-line obstruction bill could still pass before Congress closes” (March 11).
Report #1 refers to low reserves on March 5 of only 624 MW, available capacity was only 10,115 MW due to unscheduled shutdowns by some (aging?) power plants while peak demand hit 9,491 MW.
Report #2 refers to the “Murang Kuryente” proposal, under House Bill (HB) 8869 and Senate Bill (SB) 1590, to allocate P208 billion of the net national government share in the Malampaya fund to pay off Napocor’s stranded contract cost (SCC) and stranded debt (SD).
Report #3 is about DoE Secretary Cusi signing a notice to proceed (NTP) for First Gen Corp. to build a liquefied natural gas (LNG) import terminal. Two other entities with similar proposal were issued NTP by the DoE: Phoenix Petroleum and China Oil (CNOOC), and Australian firm Energy World Corp. Ltd. (EWC) in Quezon province.
Report #4 is about HB 6276 and SB 2098 penalizing the construction of structures that interfere with power transmission.
On report #1, it is ironic that government targets fast GDP growth of 7-8% and yet we still experience occasional near-deficiency in power during the hot months of March to May. It is not possible to have sustained fast growth if there is insufficient and limited supply of stable electricity.
From 2000 to 2017 or in just 17 years, the expansion in electricity generation in terawatt hours (TWH) and GDP size are as follows: China, 4.8x and 9.9x; Indonesia, 2.8x and 5.7x; Vietnam, 7.2x and 7.1x; Philippines, 2.1x and 3.9x. Philippines’ power generation is small (see table), there is no valid reason why certain groups would oppose fast expansion of the country’s power generation capacity if the power source is against their ideological beliefs.