20140320 Standard_You choose: options for future energy floated

Hongkongers are being asked to choose between importing 50 percent of its electricity from the mainland or using expensive natural gas.

Both options, put forward in a new consultation paper, will cost roughly the same. In addition, say environment officials, they will be cleaner than the current coal-heavy fuel mix.

The "grid purchase" option will involve 30 percent of the SAR's electricity being sourced from the China Southern Power Grid plus the 20 percent currently provided by the Daya Bay nuclear plant.

Local power generated by natural gas will provide 40 percent and 10 percent by coal and renewable energy.

The second option, called the "local generation," is that in addition to the 20 percent from the Daya Bay nuclear plant, power generated by natural gas will be greatly increased from the current 22 percent to 60 percent and the remaining 20 percent will be met by coal and renewable energy.

The public is being asked to decide which of the two options should be in place by 2023.

Secretary for the Environment Wong Kam-sing said in terms of cost to consumers, there will be little difference between the two options.

However, maintaining the status quo is not an option because the aging generators which use coal will be retired beginning in 2017.

Both options would cost 100 percent more than the cost of generating power from 2008 to 2012, the Environment Bureau said in the consultation document.

"A preliminary estimate is that the unit cost of imported grid electricity will roughly double the unit generation cost over the five-year period from 2008 to 2012," the document said. While the additional cost will be borne partly by consumers, Wong said it is too early to estimate how actual electricity tariffs would be affected.

The China Southern Power Grid currently supplies electricity to Macau.

Its reliability is 99.9 percent, which is the same as in Hong Kong.

Raymond So Wai-man, chairman of the energy advisory committee, said it is unavoidable that local power tariffs will increase in the future.

Greenpeace senior campaigner Prentice Koo Wai- muk believes the increased tariffs for importing electricity would be relatively smaller compared with the option for Hong Kong to generate power mainly by natural gas.