Department of Energy (DOE) Secretary Alfonso Cusi said adding another round to the Feed-in-Tariff (FIT) scheme will go against the agency’s goal of bringing down power rates in the country.
Another FIT round will only add difficulty for consumers who already pay high electricity rates, Cusi told reporters yesterday.
“What I’m saying is it’s already too much because FIT, it runs up to 20 years and it’s overburdening our consumers. We want to bring down our electricity rates but how can we bring it down if we keep on giving FIT?” he said.
Suggestions have been made previously that FIT rates should not be shouldered by consumers but instead be sourced from an alternate source for FIT payments.
The DOE chief said he has already talked with the Climate Change Commission and other international organizations for funding for FIT.
“I’m not…against providing incentives to developers, but it should be through a different means,” Cusi said.
FIT enables power developers to apply for a set of incentives covering a period of 20 years to promote more investment in the renewable energy (RE) sector. It is covered by the FIT Allowance (FIT All), charged to all on-grid electricity consumers as part of their monthly bills. Consumers are currently paying P0.124 per kilowatt-hour (kWh).
The National Transmission Corp. (Transco), which oversees the FIT All, is set to file the 2017 FIT All on or before December 1.
