The Philippines needs to generate at least 52,826 megawatts from renewable energy (RE) sources between now and 2040 just to keep up with the Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS), the Department of Energy (DOE) said.
Under the RPS, electricity suppliers are mandated to source a portion of their capacity from RE set at 2.52 percent each year at the moment. The RE component of the energy mix buildup program rises to 35 percent by 2030 and 50 percent by 2040.
“By increasing the requirement to 2.52 percent, we would be needing around 53 GW of additional RE capacities by 2040 with an equivalent of 175 terawatt-hours of RE generation. Note that this simulation does not include yet the share of nuclear energy as envisioned,” said Mylene Capongcol, DOE assistant secretary, at the Philippine Electric Power Industry Forum hosted by the Independent Electricity Market Operator of the Philippines in Iloilo City last Friday.
Capongcol said that of the new RE capacities needed by 2040, 364 MW should come from biomass, 2,500 MW from geothermal, 6,150 MW from hydro, 16,650 MW from wind and 27,162 MW from solar.
“While we have already implemented most of the RE policy and development mechanism, there are still actions and strategies that we need to undertake. Particularly, the implementation of the RPS and the green energy auction program,” Capongcol said.
She also said other policies to further promote RE investments include new policies on the expanded roof-mounted solar program, an enhanced net-metering policy that now cover off-grid areas as well and the upcoming commercial operations of the RE market.
According to the DOE, the installed capacity in the Philippines from solar, wind, hydro, geothermal and biomass technologies total 8,417 MW as of end-January 2024.
This is equivalent to 29.7 percent of the entire 28,291 MW installed capacity in the country excluding energy storage systems.
