Energy firms that have gas-fired power fleets are now advancing their plea for ‘international funding mechanism’ that will underpin eventual actions to be taken on the decommissioning of their generating facilities.

During the 4^th Philippine Environment Summit, First Gen Chairman and CEO Federico R. Lopez indicated that they “keep an eye out for international funding for decommissioning these plants earlier than their useful lives,” qualifying that “such funds are increasingly becoming more available.”

The decommissioning of fossil fuel-fired power facilities, primarily coal and gas, is being pushed once energy storage systems as technology coupling to variable renewable energy (VRE) will reach broader commercial maturity and become cost-competitive in the electric bills of Filipino consumers.

“Over time as more clean energy and storage is added into our grids, we must look toward decommissioning our fossil fuel powered plants: first the coal plants, and then ultimately the oil and natural gas plants,” Lopez stressed.

He specified that for the gas plants, “they can either be repowered with green fuels like hydrogen as they become feasible in the coming decade or outright decommissioned before 2050, similar to the process done for the coal plants earlier.”

For coal-fired power plants, an ‘energy transition mechanism’ (ETM) funding facility is already being rolled out, so these facilities can already be retired ahead of their useful life cycle.

Lopez emphasized “decarbonizing and scaling up a green electricity grid over the next three decades is probably the greatest energy transition in the history of mankind.”

He, nevertheless, highlighted that while the global energy transition appears straightforward and many energy markets have been opting for RE as the viable pathway to that goal, the actual strategies toward greening the grids entail more complex initiatives to be carried out by the industry players; as well as well-coordinated and decisive actions to be pursued by policymakers and regulators.

“Adding more 24/7 renewable energy sources like hydro and geothermal power to the grid is straightforward and should be encouraged where we can,” Lopez said.

He similarly stated “what needs to be done thoughtfully is adding more intermittent RE sources like solar and wind. Their variable and intermittent nature necessitates that we match them with more storage to account for the fact that they’re not there when night falls or on cloudy or windless days.”

The First Gen top executive, nevertheless, noted that to-date “batteries are only capable of running 3-4 hours and thus fall short of fully providing power for the 10-12 hours before the sun rises or the stretches of cloudy or windless days or even weeks.”

For that reason, he echoed the view of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. on the country’s “need for a low carbon emission fuel like natural gas to act as the bridge fuel that’s technically more suited for complementing the variable nature of RE.”

He further asserted “without this, we cannot keep our lights on and affordable as we scale- up and deploy more intermittent renewable energy sources into our grids.”