THE Institute for Climate and Sustainable Cities (ICSC) reacted with some pique to my Jan. 27, 2026 column (“The reliability double standard”) by filing a letter to the editor, which was published here in The Manila Times on Jan. 30. I have said before that I appreciate considered responses — whether I agree with them or not — to any argument I make in print, and I thank the ICSC for taking the time to share their rebuttal. I regret not being able to address it a few days earlier than now, but there have been intervening events.
That said, the ICSC’s follow-up was a bit of a strawman argument, characterizing my piece as arguing in favor of maintaining coal-fired baseload capacity “while unfairly placing blame on renewable energy” (RE) for energy reliability challenges. The statement also makes a grossly erroneous argument in downplaying concerns about the variability of RE, and while it calls out an admittedly consumer-unfriendly rate manipulation in the handling of fuel costs in conventional thermal plants, it conveniently ignores the equally manipulative factors that burden consumers with the same sort of extra costs in RE plants.
First of all, just to clarify once again, as I did when I originally published, the commentary I shared in my Jan. 27 column did not originate in my own appallingly brilliant mind, but was shared with me by a major generation company, one that has both extensive thermal and RE assets, and is pursuing an aggressive development program for the latter. In fact, provided that those developments proceed more or less as planned, which they are so far, this company’s own energy mix will beat the national policy goal of having 35 percent RE by 2030 and 50 percent by 2040 by several years. This is obviously not a source that is, in any way, unenthusiastic about RE, and as I pointed out in my original column, it is quite representative of the Philippine generation sector as a whole in that respect.
This is another strawman argument of the ICSC and other groups of that ilk, that the existing generation sector is resistant to RE development in favor of conventional baseload generation. It is simply not true.
The ICSC’s letter also makes the assertion that, “For decades, Philippine power planning assumed electricity demand to be largely constant, justifying heavy investment in baseload generation.” This has led, the ICSC argues, to excessive baseload capacity; about 12,300 megawatts (MW) versus the 6,000 to 9,000 MW it should be according to average off-peak demand. That is actually a fair point; overcapacity can be a handicap.
However, the ICSC’s assertion implies that Philippine power planning is still being done according to conditions that were applicable “decades” ago. That is certainly not true at all; the Department of Energy’s Green Energy Auction Program (GEAP) is a glowing rebuttal of that argument, as is the extensive RE generation development planning of major generation firms outside of the GEAP. RE as a significant primary source of generation capacity was not possible decades ago, and has only become so financially and technically in perhaps the last 10 years, and perhaps even less than that here in the Philippines. A half-century-old electricity infrastructure cannot be remade overnight. As I have said over and over again, because green energy advocates and consumer watchdogs evidently do not understand the meaning of the word, “transition” means a process of change over some period of time.
The ICSC also makes a call, not for the first time, that automatic pass-through costs for coal should be disallowed, and the regulatory regime adjusted to remove this disincentive for efficiency and fuel cost risk management. I absolutely agree with that. However, as my original column stressed, all generation sources should be held to the same standards. In this case, the standard is, “not supported by regulatory perks that cushion prices against generators’ possible mistakes in management.” Take away fuel pass-through costs, certainly. But using the same reasoning, that means that subsidies to RE generators in the form of the feed-in tariff allowance (FIT-All) and the new Green Energy Auction Allowance (GEA-All) that all of us now pay beginning with January’s electric bill should also be eliminated.
That point about the pass-through costs, though valid, is where the ICSC’s rebuttal started to really tick me off. Only coal is mentioned, which again makes the unfair and frankly rather offensive implication that the original commentary was pro-coal. There is more coal power in the Philippines than anything else, but coal is not the only fuel affected by cost volatility; natural gas, diesel, and bunker oil prices are generally more erratic than coal, and no less burdensome.
The most egregious and dishonest assertion in the ICSC response, however, was this absolute howler: “Renewable output varies, but it does so in patterns that are forecastable, scheduled, and explicitly accounted for in dispatch and contracts.” When multiple RE generation operators say that it is absolutely none of those things, one should take their word for it. After all, it is in their best interests to maintain as much uptime as possible, as they only get paid for the electrons they produce.
I’m going to issue a challenge to the ICSC at this point. Below is a graphic, evidently supplied by Aboitiz Power from one of their own solar plants for inclusion in a recent article by the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism about offshore wind development, showing the generation output over a single day. Each bar represents a five-minute interval, corresponding to the dispatch intervals of the electricity spot market.
I would like to see the ICSC’s researchers pick any existing utility-scale solar plant in the Philippines and produce month-ahead or even day-ahead forecasts that prove the output is forecastable, and can be scheduled and explicitly accounted for in dispatch and contracts. Come up with a graph ahead of time that reasonably matches the actual output next month or even tomorrow. I do not believe it can be done, and the people who actually run solar plants do not believe it, either. So here’s your chance to prove us wrong.
ben.kritz@manilatimes.net
Bluesky: @benkritz.bsky.social
Website: www.badmannersgunclub.com