With only less than 100 MW out of the targeted 250 MW run-of-river projects confirmed, the National Renewable Energy Board (NREB) is gunning for an extension for feed-in tariff allowance (FiT-All) applications for run-of-river and biomass projects.
Currently, developers have until the end of this year to finish their run-of-river and biomass projects and still qualify for FIT, which guarantees payment for their capacity output for 20 years.
The DOE aims to have around 250 MW of installed capacity for run of-river and biomass but according to NREB Chairman Atty. Monalisa Dimalanta, only the allotted capacity for biomass projects has been filled up.
“For NREB, we will request. We’ll formalize our request to the secretary to accommodate all the capacity that will be tested for FiT eligibility. For run-of-river, there’s no excess capacity. It will be filled up but they won’t be able to meet it within the year. It’s just that they can’t do the testing this year. For biomass, they will meet it within the year but it’s excess capacity,” Dimalanta was quoted in a BusinessMirror report.
“So, the request we’ll make to the [energy] secretary is to accommodate both the extension on timeline for run-of-river hydro and the excess capacity within the timeline for biomass,” she added.
NREB will recommend an extension to the deadline for run-of-river projects from the end of this year to the second quarter of next year.
“I need to check the timeline but definitely by next year, second quarter,” she said, adding that for biomass there’s “no more deadline but [we] accommodate them because they already have their certificate of confirmation of commerciality,” she said.
Dimalanta said it is still up for the DOE’s approval.
“We don’t know if the secretary will agree but that’s going to be our request to him that we accommodate both. I think the secretary is open to accepting the hydro one. It’s the 100 MW excess in biomass that we are still trying to convince [him about] because that one has the impact on FiT-All.”
NREB is the task group responsible for the recommendation of policies, rules, and standard concerning the implementation of the renewable energy (RE) law.
