NREB to hold 2,000-MW RE capacity auction in 2019

By Lenie Lectura-  August 21, 2019

https://businessmirror.com.ph/2019/08/21/nreb-to-hold-2000-mw-re-capacity-auction-in-2019/

A PROPOSAL to auction 2,000 megawatts (MW) of renewable-energy (RE) capacity under the green-energy tariff program is being eyed for implementation within this year.

“Hopefully, we will get the approval of the board so that we could already formalize our recommendation to the secretary. There will be a draft circular for public consultation to institutionalize the program. The target is to roll this out within the year. So, hopefully, we meet the target,” said Atty. Monalisa Dimalanta, who chairs the National Renewable Energy Board (NREB).

NREB is the advisory body tasked by law to recommend policies, rules and standards to govern the implementation of the RE law, which granted fiscal and nonfiscal incentives to RE projects.

She said the implementation of the program must coincide with that of the Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS), a policy mandating distribution utilities to source a minimum portion of energy from renewable sources, thus guaranteeing a market for RE generators.

“We need to do that soon. Based on the instructions of the DOE secretary, the main objective is promote more investments in the RE sector considering that it won’t have feed-in-tariffs and another round of FIT anymore. So, it’s really to attract more investments and the idea is to create a market for them to facilitate their access to market for the renewable energy,” Dimalanta explained.

“The secretary promised the 2,000MW of RE. He says that ‘it’s up to you whether it comes from solar, or hydro, or geothermal, or whatever, you decide.’ The way we are looking at it in NREB, we won’t specify the resource but we will look at whether this is baseload capacity, mid-merit,” added the NREB chief.

Her office has already drafted preliminary recommendations that will be up for discussion within the board. “We have a board meeting this week so hopefully we get the instructions already and the consensus from the members so that we can formally present it,” said Dimalanta.

Basically, she explained, an auction will be open for RE developers.  A price would have to be set. NREB will then allocate the RE capacity to distribution facilities who are required to purchase RE because of their RPS mandate.

The details, including the capacity limit of a participating RE developer, have yet to be firmed up by NREB.  “That’s part of the parameters that we need to develop but most likely it will not be a limit to the capacity. We need to change the language altogether because the RPS is set on megawatt hours, so it’s the energy that we actually generate, not just the capacity of the plants. So, in terms of green-energy pricing, our measure will be on megawatt hours, as well.”

NREB would have to also consider the RPS requirement in determining the cap. “Right now, DOE is undergoing workshops with utilities to identify their RPS requirements… Some distribution utilities already have RE capacity. [They already have a] PSA (power supply agreement) or a FiT allocation. How much would they still need to meet the 1 percent minimum RE generation? So, we will have to match,” she explained.