First Gen Corp. said it positions its portfolio of low-carbon power plants, including its natural gas-fired facilities, as balanced solutions to address the country’s “energy trilemma.”
First Gen vice president Carlo Vega said at the Economic Journalists Association of the Philippines renewable energy forum that its RE facilities and its gas-fired power plants provide “proper balance” and “multi-faceted solutions” that address the trilemma of energy security, energy equity or affordability, and environmental sustainability.
Vega said providing solutions to the trilemma comes with its own challenges such as build more power plants to achieve energy security.
The company cited the need to balance the trilemma with environmental sustainability.
Vega said the Philippines has continued to rely on coal plants for the past 23 years to meet energy demand growth.
The share of carbon-intensive coal-fired power plants in the power generation mix went up from 7 percent in the 1990s to 60 percent. “The question now is: Do we use the same choice of supply?” Vega asked.
He said, “it’s actually not a transition [to a green economy], if we continue to emit the same amount of carbon [dioxide].”
“We feel that this [or natural gas] is the solution because of two things: One, it is in fact, without a doubt the least-carbon-emitting fossil fuel source of power. Whether it’s 50 percent, 55 percent or 60 percent lower, it [emission of natural gas] is much lower than coal,” Vega said.
He said natural gas is also very flexible as it provides baseload, mid-merit and peaking power generation requirement.
“And that’s why we feel that, if we were to look at a transition fuel to bring us to where we want RE to be, then we should put more eggs in this basket, because there are a lot of eggs already in the other baskets,” he said.
