Pagudpud wind farm (File photo by Leilanie Adriano)
MANILA – Data from the Department of Energy (DOE) shows that wind and solar energy projects are dominating the indicative power projects from 2023 to 2028, reflecting the impacts of the government measures to shift to clean energy.
Of the 21,127 megawatts (MW) of indicative power projects until 2028, about 74 percent or 15,556.63 MW are renewables dominated by wind and solar projects, sharing 36 percent and 35 percent of the total RE projects, respectively.
As of May 31, 2023, indicative wind projects in six years reached 5,532.4 MW, with prospects of 719.40 MW in 2024, 476 MW in 2025, 1,982 MW in 2026, and 2,355 MW in 2027. There are no indicative wind projects yet in 2023 and 2028.
Since the World Bank study was launched last year revealing that the Philippines has 178 gigawatts (GW) of offshore wind potential, the DOE has pushed for policies that will attract investments in this sector.
As of end-May, the DOE has issued 65 offshore wind energy service contracts.
On top of offshore wind projects, indicative projects also include onshore projects.
Indicative solar energy projects from 2023 to 2028 have reached 5,497.93 MW, according to the DOE document.
There are prospective solar projects of 554.54 MW this year, 2,875.57 MW next year, 1,162.36 MW in 2025, 539.54 MW in 2026, 365.62 MW in 2027, and 181.2 MW in 2028.
Moreover, the DOE said there are 9,557.39 MW of committed power capacity until the end of Marcos administration. These projects in the pipeline have already secured power supply agreements, financial closing, impact studies and permits.
About 3,665.68 MW are committed RE projects.
Green energy auction
The DOE issued the Notice of Award dated July 12 to the winning bidders of the second round of the Green Energy Auction (GEA-2).
The auction was done last July 3 and generated 3,440.76 MW of RE capacities for 2024, 2025, and 2026.
“The winning bidders are required to submit to the DOE their post-auction documents within 60 calendar days from the date of posting of the Notice of Award or until 10 September 2023 as prescribed under the applicable Terms of Reference,” DOE said.
There are 105 projects that won the bidding for green energy capacity.
Among the winners is the listed RE pioneer Alternergy Holdings Corp., which bagged three projects under the GEA-2.
“Winning all our projects we bid for is a game changer for Alternergy. For the next three years, we will be building three projects with 200 MW of contracted capacity, a jump from 80 MW to 384 MW in gross installed capacity in three years,” Alternergy chairman Vicente Pérez Jr. said in a statement.
Alternergy president Gerry Magbanua added that the new investments under the GEA 2 will boost economic activities of host communities of these clean energy projects. (PNA)
