Philippine officials and key industry players will be on a one-week Nuclear Energy Mission to Canada this March to scrutinize the policy frameworks and regulatory regimes of this developed market - primarily on how it had set the bar high on its ‘cradle-to-grave’ precept of nuclear energy facilities development.

According to Energy Undersecretary Sharon S. Garin, who will be leading the delegation from the Department of Energy (DOE), Canada is a high-interest market for the Philippine policymakers and regulators to study because they have efficiently navigated the entire supply chain of nuclear facilities development and operations – that is from uranium mining, to the viable and safe construction of nuclear facilities (both conventional technologies and the emerging small modular reactors or SMRs) up to the waste disposal facet of operations.

The energy official said discussions will also delve on concerns relating to efficient and well-calculated preparation of the workforce through links with the academe as well as pursuing prudent strategies on the often controversial milieu of ‘social acceptance’ for nuclear power projects.

Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) Chairperson Monalisa C. Dimalanta, who is also a leading figure in the delegation, highlighted that with the exchange of ideas, knowledge and information with peers in Canada,” we need a better appreciation, for instance, not only about the component of the rates charged by nuclear power generators but also the operating profile of these facilities and services these provide to support grid reliability.”

Apart from Garin and Dimalanta, the others joining the delegation are officials from the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) and the Philippine Nuclear Research Institute (PNRI) as well as key executives from Aboitiz Power Corporation, Manila Electric Company (Meralco) and Prime Infrastructure Capital of the Razon group.

“What’s good about this trip is that: the representatives from the Philippines and from the Canadian Embassy are very diverse, other than there’s private sector; there also media people invited and there are also representatives from the government side,” Garin added.

The DOE official further noted “the government agencies joining the mission will be the main decision-makers in the nuclear energy program of the Philippines - so it will be good for us from the government to see how Canada has performed on the nuclear energy sector because they are actually one of the most efficient -- they construct on time and on budget.”

Garin asserted “these are the key concerns that we have to learn from the Canadian players and government regulators in the nuclear space, so we don’t increase the cost of electricity here – and of course, we also need to have a deep understanding of the development landscape of nuclear power facilities so we won’t be confronted with unnecessary delays or shackled with unforeseen budget increases when we start putting up our own nuclear facilities.”

Notably, many new nuclear power projects around the world in recent years had either been hobbled with long delays or massive cost overruns that even resulted in the shelving of some planned developments – including proposed installations in Europe and the United States.

On the regulatory realm, Dimalanta highlighted that “as the country explores nuclear energy to include in our supply mix, the ERC had started its study of different regulatory frameworks in jurisdictions that have had nuclear in their mix. Just as the increased penetration of RE (renewable energy) in our supply mix is changing our energy landscape, we anticipate that the entry of nuclear power facilities will further move the evolution of our power system. We need to prepare for and anticipate this change.”

Garin explained that since the Philippine government already has its agreement with Canada on nuclear power deployment, the way forward for the two countries will just be to work or sign “more administrative agreements” as warranted, once the Philippines would already re-enter its nuclear renaissance development era.

Under the updated Philippine Energy Plan (PEP), what is being cast by the DOE would be the integration of nuclear installations in the energy mix by year 2032 – potentially kicking off at 1,200 megawatts; with a ramp up to 2,400MW by 2035; and 4,800MW by 2050.

Peer-to-peer learning

“What we expect is to learn more from Canada’s private industries, and we are also meeting many of the government agency-counterparts of DOE, ERC and also the counterparts of DOST and PNRI,” Garin stressed.

She qualified “this will strengthen our relationship with Canada and we can also do capacity building with them -- by meeting them and also learning from them and hopefully, we can have a more in-depth relationship with them in terms of nuclear energy.”

Relative to the ongoing nuclear development framework being spearheaded by the DOE, Garin conveyed that the trip may also provide valuable insights to the policymakers – fundamentally on concerns relating to siting of the nuclear power projects, safety procedures as well as on enhancement of safety redundancies following various nuclear accidents through the years – especially after the 2011 Fukushina tragedy in Japan.

“We are finalizing our nuclear framework, and we are already targeting to issue the roadmap. So hopefully, we will learn a lot more from the Canadian market - especially in the finalization of our own nuclear development roadmap,” Garin asserted.

She expounded “a roadmap means if we have an objective in 2032-2033, we have to do so many things to prepare our capacities and our supply chain so we can build a nuclear power plant by then. It tells us which agency will need to do how many sites we need, what do the academe sector would need and everything else.”

The proposed National Nuclear Energy Safety Act had already secured the maze of approval in the House of Representatives, but the counterpart-bill in Senate has yet to advance on its pace of deliberations.