DEMAND AND SUPPLY…

be used at full power between 60-and 90-percent of the time.

“But their actual utilization rate (also called the capacity factor) has been plummeting in recent years, and is now close to a mere 20 percent in countries as diverse as China, Germany and India.”

BNEF’s projection of current and future prices in the US shows that onshore wind is already cheaper than coal, and is becoming cheaper than gas. Solar photovoltaic is rapidly becoming cheaper than coal and will beat gas within several years.

Here, Lean Leviste of Solar Philippines offered to supply Meralco at P2.99/kwh using solar energy compared to over P5 for coal and about P4 for geothermal.

Renewables are particularly attractive to developing countries like the Philippines, an archipelago of 7100 islands that makes it difficult and expensive to have a central grid that covers everyone.

For off-grid areas, Leviste is now proving that distributed renewable like solar makes more sense. Leviste recently inaugurated the first solar powered micro-grid in Asia to feature Powerpacks from Tesla in a remote barangay in Mindoro. Its residents now enjoy reliable power supply 24 hours a day, 365 days a year at less than half the rate of the local cooperative.

Indeed, a big solar power system is being built in Saudi Arabia, where natural gas is abundant. The SoftBank Group is partnering with Saudi Arabia to build 200 gigawatts of solar power capacity for $200 billion. Softbank said the system would supply evening hour power to the Saudis using what will be the largest utility-scale battery in two to three years, Bloomberg reported.

And here we are, with Energy Secretary Cusi claiming he successfully convinced President Duterte to revive the mothballed nuclear power plant. If this is true, it will be a colossal mistake that will waste at least a billion dollars (according to Cusi’s estimated rehabilitation cost) of the people’s money.

President Duterte should have trusted his instincts and kept his earlier decision against reviving the Bataan plant. If he follows Cusi, he may end up duplicating the Marcos mistake at an even larger cost to taxpayers.

Profanity

My good friend Ed Yap sent in this Easter joke: A man went to church on Easter Sunday and afterward he stopped to shake the preacher’s hand. He said, “Preacher, that was a damned fine sermon. Damned good!”

The preacher said, “Thank you sir, but I’d rather you didn’t use profanity.”

The man said, “I was so damned impressed with that sermon I put five thousand dollars in the offering plate!” The preacher said, “No shit?” Boo Chanco’s e-mail address is bchanco@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter @boochanco.