The grid has to change. Even if you have 100 percent renewable source, your grid has to change

At the moment, Meralco is transiting towards cleaner power from high carbon usage.

MACTAN, Cebu — The government should craft an energy transition plan preparatory to full migration into renewable energy (RE), an industry official said.

At a news briefing at the sidelines of the AESIEAP CEO Conference 2019 on Monday, Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) president and chief executive officer Ray Espinosa said while the country wants to migrate to a cleaner source of energy, it requires much effort from the energy industry as a transition plan must be carefully crafted.

According to Espinosa, the country may be ready to embrace renewable energy in full but concerns on whether it is enough to supply demand hounds the resource no end.

Espinosa added even Philippine grids should transition into being capable of receiving renewable energy.

“(The) grid has to change. Even if you have 100 percent renewable source, your grid has to change. Our grid has yet to be geared to (RE) so even the grid will have to undergo this transition,” Espinosa said.

“We cannot just demonize coal because we have to also understand we want to fuel economic growth so the demand for power becomes higher when we are basically seeing growth,” he added.

Espinosa said the government and the private sector should have a roadmap and that government “should lay down the policies for this transition to happen.”

“We cannot make it work alone because there are other conditions that are dependent on government policies and actions,” he said. This includes leveraging on technological advancements of renewable energy and energy efficiency that can be adopted in the whole region.

Espinosa said Meralco is transiting towards cleaner power from high carbon usage at the moment.

“In our minds, we have set an agenda whereby as we contract stable sources of power, our minds are actually focused on basically moving ourselves from a high carbon to low carbon footprint and hopefully to a zero-carbon electricity, which is tapping renewables,” he said.

“The issue in the Philippines is the abundance, whether it can actually substitute fully for fossil fuels. That’s a big question.”