By Eddie O’ Connor
AS always, it is interesting to read Mr. Oplas. The conservative mind can simply be regarded as stupid, but I tend to see it as representing vested commercial interests.
Einstein used to conduct thought experiments. So let us conduct one about dispatch of electricity.
A little background is helpful. In every electricity system in the world the next unit to be dispatched is the one with the cheapest marginal cost. This thinking and practice has evolved over the past one hundred years.
So imagine what happens when a good strong wind begins to blow or the sun rises above the horizon and causes the solar panels and wind turbines to produce electricity.
Also, imagine that the demand for electricity is constant and this demand is already being met before the wind and sun become available, by a variety of sources ranging from cheap hydro to old clapped-out coal plant with a low efficiency.
As the renewable plant begins to produce electricity the old plant is reduced in output. The first result of this is that the Philippines doesn’t have to import the coal to make the electricity and the second is that the price reduces for the customer.
A study was conducted by the Department of Energy, which showed that the additional cost of the FIT was P25Bn but the savings to the customer was P45Bn. This result is echoed in Ireland where the extra payment to the wind developer is €100m per year but €200m is saved by importing less gas to make electricity. This is known as the merit order effect.
As to whether there is a FIT in place now or not, all Mr. Oplas has to do is to ring up the Department of Energy. He, poor chap, seems to think that because the original FIT is being paid for, that new wind or solar receives a FIT. It doesn’t. We now compete with, and beat, coal on price. The first wind plant I built was in 1992. It was in receipt of a FIT for twenty years. For the last six years it is producing electricity for next to nothing. All CO2 free and still cutting back on gas imports.
I know it must be hard for Mr. Oplas to accept the science that CO2 absorbs sunlight. However it does. I invite Mr. Oplas again to replicate the Tyndall experiment.
Loving coal is an emotional thing. To each his own. For 200 years after the shadow of the earth on the moon proved its rotundity, the flat earthers persisted, in their funny old fashioned belief.
In Ireland there is a well-known syndrome for coal lovers; it is called carbophilia.
The good news for Mr. Oplas is that it is curable, with study and patience.
The author is executive chairman of Mainstream Renewable Power.
