Of the 50 European firms exploring investments in renewable energy (RE) technologies, several of them are stepping up interest in hydro and tidal resource technologies, according to Energy Secretary Rene D. Almendras.
“We do have a lot of investments already from the European countries here. There are interests from hydro, I’m speaking about Austria and Germany … there’s a lot of interest for EPC (engineering, procurement and construction) contracts, even in the micro-hydro projects,” he said.
The other area that EU countries have been keenly looking at is on harnessing ocean and tidal current resources for electricity generation, with the energy chief noting that it could be an ideal investment proposition given the Philippines’ “island-state” geographical make-up.
“That’s why I’m saying we can probably work together including the European Union. Clearly, the investment into research and development (R&D) process is what we need… it is not happening in land-locked countries… whereas for us, we are small island-states,” he stressed.
Based on the list provided by the EU, the interested firms for various RE developments include Solarig, CREA, Endesa, DRESS, Smith Bell, Clean Tech Asia, BG Consolidated Holdings, Maccaterri Ph, Brozeoak, Noveroak, Steag, Total, Nordex, McConnell Dowell, Alstom, Andritz Hydro, Ecotech Industrial Supply, Austria micro systems, Stenum, Conergy, Gugler, and Vestas.
The others are 5P for RES, ABB, Schneider Electric, TANN Philippines, TUV Rheinland, Wartsila, Digital Waters, JEC Philippines, Poyry Energy, Kautschuk Gessellschaft Group, UPC Renewables; Enfinity, Gamesa, Bitcino, Shell, Global Green, Forum Energy and Pitkin Petroleum, among others.
The energy chief’s statement on the European investors’ interest was reinforced by European Union Ambassador Guy Ledoux, as he emphasized that the investment trajectories set by both countries are relatively aligned, hence, the Philippines has been attracting prospective capital flows from the EU jurisdiction.
At the first EU-Philippines Meeting on Energy which intends to promote investment experiences as well as technology sharing with Philippine investor-counterparts, the European companies themselves admitted some “learnings” that the country must be “heedful” of, if it wants to succeed in the renewable energy investment sphere.
Primarily in the field of solar, German Ambassador Joachim Schmidt indicated prospects of technology cost reduction because of recent developments in Europe, which as a result, may eventually benefit Filipino consumers.
On the feed-in-tariff (FIT) system as a levy for investments, Ledoux noted that this is something that the Philippines had actually adopted from the European strategy. This is also the single biggest regulatory decision that most RE investors had been waiting for before their projects can finally take off from drawing boards.
“By exchanging best practices in one of the most crucial sectors of our economy, I sincerely hope we will learn from each other while promoting technology transfer,” the EU envoy stressed.
