posted July 26, 2020 at 06:30 pm by Alena Mae S. Flores
The Energy Department said it will
review its policies, including the Renewable Portfolio Standards, to bring the
share of renewable energy in the Philippine power generation mix to 35 percent
of the total energy portfolio.
“2020 has seen a slight growth [for
RE] although it’s really not that substantial...But the challenge in front of
us is really to reach the target of 35 percent, and we are still a long way
from the target,” Energy Assistant Secretary Redentor Delola said Friday during
a webinar organized by the Clean Energy Investment Accelerator in coordination
with the National Renewable Energy Board and the National Electrification
Administration.
Data from NREB showed that the share
of renewable energy in the Philippine power generation mix hit a low of 21
percent in 2019
Delola said the department was
looking at ways to increase the share of RE in the generation mix.
“In fact, one of the things we are
studying right now is to revisit some of the policies we’ve already
promulgated. The RPS rules, does it really drive the utilization of RE? We are
trying to review if the one percent increment would still be able to reach our
target, or we may revisit it and probably increase it a little bit so we may be
able to reach our targets,” the energy official said.
RPS sets the minimum percentage of
generation to be sourced from RE sources. It is set at one percent of
electricity sales allocation for distribution utilities connected to the grid.
“We are very excited for what 2020
has to offer for RE, because this is the year finally when all the RE Act
mandated programs are going to be implemented,” NREB chairperson Monalisa
Dimalanta said in the same forum.
Dimalanta earlier said capacity
addition from RE generation was way behind the target of 15,000 megawatts by
2030.
“When RE Act was passed back in
2008, renewable energy already accounted for less than 40 percent, around 35 to
40 percent of our energy mix. So that was our starting point. We counted from 35
to 40 percent to further grow the share of renewable energy by the passage of
the RE Act,” Dimalanta said.
Based on NREB figures, RE captured
25.64 percent of the generation mix in 2014, before it went down to 25.44
percent in 2015 and 24.21 percent in 2016.
The share of RE in the mix improved
slightly to 24.57 percent in 2017 but again declined to 23.38 percent in 2018
before going falling to 21 percent last year.
Additional capacity from RE between
2009 and 2019 reached 2,196.34 MW, of which the bulk came from solar.
This brought the total RE capacity to 7,600 MW, behind the 15,000 MW target by
2030.
“So from what we have in 2010, which
was when the NREP [National Renewable Energy Program] was passed, 5,438 MW in
capacity in 2010, the target was to triple that to 15,000 MW…allocated along
the resources that has been identified by the act,” Dimalanta said.
“Apart from the capacity we have not
realized, it’s the share in the mix that keeps on dwindling that makes us
pause,” Dimalanta said.
Dimalanta said the National
Renewable Energy Program should be reviewed.
“We are looking at the Philippines
requiring more than 45,000 MW of capacity by 2040, what portion should be taken
by RE, and this to me is the compelling reason we need to be deliberate. We
need to be more decisive in terms of allocating, or targeting the share of RE,”
she said.
“This makes it to me imperative to
update the NREP. The target is last year. We realize that NREP is
10 years old and it has not been updated. The costs have changed for some
technologies. The projections for demand have changed so it really
requires a lot of updating,” Dimalanta said.
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