MANILA – The Department of Energy (DOE) has urged potential suppliers to participate in the next round of the Green Energy Auction (GEA-2) this June.
“The issuance of the NOA (notice of auction) triggers the series of activities toward the target GEA-2 in June 2023,” the DOE said in a statement Tuesday. The NOA was published on March 27.
Under the GEA-2, DOE offers a total renewable energy (RE) capacity of 11,600 megawatts (MW) from 2024 to 2026.
For the period, RE sources will be 6,715 MW from ground-mounted solar, 605 MW from roof-mounted solar, 300 MW from floating solar, 3,720 MW from onshore wind, 230 MW from biomass and 30 MW from waste-to-energy.
Of the total RE capacity under the GEA-2, some 7,715 MW are for Luzon, 2,695 MW for Visayas and 1,190 MW for Mindanao.
The proposed installation targets include 3,590 MW this year, 3,630 MW in 2025 and 4,390 MW in 2026.
“While the GEA-2 is expected to encourage more investments in power generation, it further pursues to promote the growth of RE as one of the country’s primary sources of energy by facilitating transparent and competitive selection of RE facilities to support the major goal of the government of attaining energy security through the entry of new capacities in the grid,” the DOE added.
Twenty days after the issuance of NOA, the DOE will soon release the terms of reference and the auction round procedures.
The Energy Regulatory Commission is also expected to issue GEA Reserve (GEAR) prices and its methodology.
“The GEAP (green energy auction program) was designed to continuously trigger the increase of RE capacity in the country, which will help realize the government’s target of 35 percent RE in the energy mix by 2035 and 50 percent by 2040,” the DOE reiterated.
Meanwhile, the energy department will also revisit the data and status of ongoing run-on-river (ROR) hydro projects to determine the auction capacities for the succeeding GEA rounds. The earliest can be expected in the last quarter of the year.
“While the GEA program was introduced as another market option for RE developers, the DOE finds it more efficient to facilitate the completion of ROR hydro projects under the FIT (feed-in-tariff) program,” it added.
The DOE said the installation target of 350 MW under the FIT for ROR hydro projects still has an available capacity of 177.217 MW for subscription as of February 2023.
“Based on the DOE’s coordination with the ERC, they are currently working on the FIT-2 and FIT-3 rates for ROR hydro to enable the completion of the FIT program,” it said. (PNA)
