The Department of Energy (DOE) looks to attract as much as 11,610 megawatts (MW) in renewable energy at the second Green Energy Auction (GEA) that will be conducted in June.
Under the GEA, renewable energy producers compete for contracts made more attractive by incentives by offering a low price for their service.
The first iteration of the GEA opened in June 2022 and attracted 2,000 MW worth of capacity.
At the Philippine Electric Power Industry Forum in Manila on Monday, Energy Undersecretary Rowena Guevara said the 11,610 MW will be for power projects that should come on stream between 2024 to 2026.
Under GEA-2, the projects need to generate 3,590 MW by 2024 and distributed to ground- and roof-mounted solar, onshore wind and biomass technology facilities.
Another 3,630 MW of power will also be auctioned for projects completed by 2025 for technologies utilizing ground-mounted solar, roof-mounted solar, onshore wind and biomass.
A total 4,390 MW is being bid out for completion by 2026 for projects using ground-mounted solar, roof-mounted solar, floating solar, onshore wind, biomass and waste-to-energy technology.
“The proposed installation targets under GEA-2 were determined based on the capacity needed by the three grids to ensure sufficient supply. The RE capacity level needs to meet the target of 35 percent RE share in the power generation mix by 2030 and 50 percent by 2040 and the volume of RE certificates necessary to comply with the mandates under the Renewable Portfolio Standards,” Guevara added.
Guevara said that this early, the DOE is preparing for GEA-3 scheduled on the fourth quarter this year and involves geothermal and impounding hydro technologies although the volume of capacity has yet to be decided.
The DOE also said that it will include in the terms of reference of the upcoming GEA rounds the list of areas and corresponding capacity of transmission that is already available to guarantee that the projects will not face any transmission issues at the projected timelines from 2024 to 2026.
Given the expected additional power capacity presented by GEA, Guevara said the DOE projects no additional instances of yellow alerts in the Luzon Grid.
Yellow alerts are issued when the level of power reserves in the grid is low, while red alerts are declared when actual power supply against demand is insufficient and power interruptions are imminent.
In January, the DOE said 12 instances of yellow alerts in the region were possible although Guevara said they now see at least 15 yellow alerts in the Luzon Grid as a result of a delay in the completion of a power plant that she did not identify.
However, Guevara said the situation could change and improve with the expected completion of 80 percent of the Mindanao-Visayas interconnection project by the end of the month.
