DOE’s ‘green’ team tasked to lead auction of RE capacity

Published November 22, 2019, 10:00 PM By Myrna M. Velasco

https://business.mb.com.ph/2019/11/22/does-green-team-tasked-to-lead-auction-of-re-capacity/

The “Green Energy Matching Committee” (GEMC) of the Department of Energy (DOE) will be spearheading the auction of the capacity that shall form part of the power distribution utilities’ compliance to the renewable portfolio standards (RPS), or the policy requiring percentage of renewable energy (RE) in the country’s power mix.

The energy department noted the “auction committee” shall administer competitive bidding for RE capacities that shall be qualified under the RPS rules of the government.

The National Renewable Energy Board (NREB) previously indicated that the initial capacity to be bidded out will be for 2,000 megawatts of RE capacity, including the stranded capacity for solar and biomass – or those projects that had not been able to qualify under the last batch of feed-in-tariff (FIT) incentives.

The energy department announced to stakeholders that it shall be forming the GEMC for RE capacity bidding. That body shall comprise of members to be designated from the DOE’s Electric Power Industry Management Bureau (EPIMB) and the Renewable Energy Management Bureau (REMB).

Under the RPS, certain volume or capacity level from RE resources shall be procured by distribution utilities (DUs) to form part of their overall supply portfolio. That volume is seen incrementally increasing over the years.

The RPS-underpinned procurement of RE capacity, as stipulated in a draft Circular of the DOE, shall be carried out in keeping with the prescribed green energy pricing that shall be set in coordination with the Energy Regulatory Commission.

“Qualified RE projects can voluntarily participate by offering all or a portion of the electricity generated by their RE facilities as peak/off-peak baseload supply with corresponding price offers set on a quarterly basis,” the energy department has set out.

It added that the “green energy price” shall be set within the duration of the RE power supply agreement (RE-PSA) based on the terms of the capacity auctioned under the RPS.

To entice participants in the RE capacity auction, the DOE is dangling the proposed “green energy pricing” as reference tariff for project developers that will be tendering their capacities for the RPS.