Napocor to check power plants’ compliance with Clean Air Act

The National Power Corp. (Napocor) will conduct an Air Shed Monitoring (ASM) study to determine its power plants’ compliance with the Clean Air Act (CAA), a ranking company official said.

"We will start a three-month ASM study starting this month to determine the level of carbon emission of our power facilities,"Napocor senior vice president Pio Benavidez said.

The Napocor’s study is in preparation for the compliance of industries in the new diesel specification under the law.

Last year, the Department of Energy (DOE) deferred the compliance of the industries in the new diesel specs for five years.

The DOE’s decision to defer the CAA compliance of industries was in response to the request from the water transport sector or those using pump boats in their respective businesses and the power plant owners, including Napocor.

But the DOE assured that despite the deferment, it would continue to encourage these industries to adhere to lower sulfur standards.

Based on initial studies, the industries can meet the emission standards under the CAA without necessarily lowering the sulfur level of the diesel products they are using.

The CAA is actually "silent" on the industries compliance to the diesel specs unlike the automotive industry wherein it was mandated to lower the sulfur content of diesel products to 0.05 percent from 0.2 percent starting Jan. 2004.

In justifying their clamor for the deferred compliance to the new diesel specs, the industries argued that having a uniform standard of diesel for both industries and automotive will result in additional cost which will add burden to the consuming public.

Aside from Napocor and pump boat users, the other industries that use diesel in their operations are manufacturers and exporters using generation sets (gensets).

Initial estimates show that the Napocor’s fuel cost adjustment will increase by P0.0086 per kilowatthour (kwh) in Luzon, P0.0174 per kwh in Cebu-Negros-Panay, and P0.0126 per kwh in Mindanao once it will adopts the new CAA specs.

In other areas like Bohol, where bunker fuel accounts for 90 percent of the generation mix, consumers will pay higher or will have a five-centavo increase in the fuel cost adjustment component in their bills.

The impact on the CAA will be added to the new generation charge approved by the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) where fuel cost adjustment is allowed to be recovered from its customers.