Local news outlets in the Philippines and other renewable energy news websites reported in the middle of this January that the Philippines’ Department of Energy (DoE) has released a list of projects eligible for the incentives under the country’s Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS). These projects are considered operational as of December 2021.
A total of 147 renewable energy projects with a collective generation capacity of 2.619GW are eligible for RPS. The scheme requires domestic utilities to have a percentage of their electricity supply based on renewables. Currently, that percentage is set 1%. However, the Philippines government intends to raise it to 2.52% next year.
Of the 147 projects, 62 are PV projects with a collective capacity of 1.3129GW, 36 are hydropower projects with a collective capacity of 412.8MW, 36 are biomass projects with a collective capacity of 264.8MW, seven are wind projects with a collective capacity of 409.9MW, and six are geothermal projects with a collective capacity of 218.5MW. Around 8.5GW of projects participated in the selection process.
According to the list, 30 of the 62 eligible PV projects are supported by feed-in tariff. The remaining 32 are selling power either in the wholesale market or through power purchase agreements. Their scales range from 0.21MW to 100.6MW. The number of PV projects on the list indicates that the Philippines could be a very profitable market for solar PV. For example, a major 500MW “solar ranch” that is now being developed in the province of Nueva Ecija is expected to operate without the support of any subsidy.
The Philippines Energy Plan, which was released by the DoE last year, has set an “aspirational” target of having renewables account for 35% of the domestic generation mix by 2030 and more than 50% by 2040. The Philippines government already launched a 2GW tender for renewable projects in June 2021 and is now aiming for 15GW of installed capacity by 2030.
According to the data from the DoE, the installed PV generation capacity of the country reached 1.06GW by the end of June 2020. Most of the operational PV projects in the Philippines are supported by the existing feed-in tariff and net metering schemes as well as the prices obtained in the previous auction programs. Local news outlet the Philippines Star reported on January 7 that the DoE is also planning to simplify the process for renewable energy companies to obtain certain benefits.