DoE finalizing green energy auction rules

By Jordeene B. Lagare April 10, 2020
https://www.manilatimes.net/2020/04/10/business/business-top/doe-finalizing-green-energy-auction-rules/711888/

THE Department of Energy (DoE) is finalizing its policy on the auction of green energy to promote the use of renewable energy (RE) in the Philippines.

In a text message to The Manila Times, Mylene Capongcol, director of the DoE’s Renewable Energy Management Bureau, said they “have consolidated comments [for the proposed rules, which] will be finalized for endorsement to” Energy Secretary Alfonso Cusi.

She did not disclose the timeline for issuing the rules governing the Green Energy Auction Program in the Philippines, but she said it was a “priority program” of the Energy chief.

We will no longer hold more public consultations, because we already held several, Capongcol said.

“I cannot tell when it will be promulgated, but it’s a priority program of” Cusi, she added.

The draft circular on these rules has two components: green energy tariff and green energy auction. The former provides price signals on the commercial value of electricity generated from RE facilities. The Energy Regulatory Commission will set the tariff and price cap.

Meanwhile, the DoE shall facilitate the green energy auction for the contracting of supply from eligible suppliers to qualified customers under a competitive selection process.

Interested RE developers may offer their capacity to distribution utilities and retail electricity suppliers that are mandated to secure a certain percentage of their power needs from eligible RE sources.

Last year, Cusi bared his department’s intention to bid out 2,000 megawatts of RE capacity to entice investors to develop RE facilities in the Philippines.

The DoE chief had tasked the National Renewable Energy Board, the bureau guiding the department on the implementation of RE initiatives in the country, to establish the guidelines for the auction of clean energy.

Based on the initial assessment of the 2011-2030 National Renewable Energy Program, total installed RE capacity as of December 2018 was lower than the target capacity by 3,608 MW, with the share of RE in the country’s generation supply mix reduced to less than 24 percent.