DOE to launch 3 more auctions for green energy

MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Energy (DOE) is conducting three more rounds of the government’s green energy auction (GEA) program, with two targeted to be held before the end of this year.

Energy Undersecretary Rowena Cristina Guevara told reporters that GEA-3 and GEA-4 would take place as early as October this year, while GEA-5 would be conducted by mid-2025.

The GEA program was designed to trigger the expansion of the country’s renewable energy (RE) capacity to support the government’s target of 35 percent RE share in the energy mix by 2030 and 50 percent by 2040.

For GEA-3, the DOE will offer impounding hydro, pumped-storage hydro, run-of-river hydro and geothermal contracts with a combined capacity of 4,399 megawatts (MW).

GEA-4 will involve over 8,200 MW worth of RE projects with energy storage system components, while GEA-5 will consist of an unspecified volume of offshore wind projects.

“Originally, we’re thinking of 8,200 MW for GEA-4, but we might increase this as we see that fossil fuels overtake renewables,” Guevara said.

Under the GEA, a special incentive rate for RE projects is auctioned off depending on the ability of power plants to run power either as peaking or mid-merit capacity.

Although GEA Reserve (GEAR) prices were implemented during the past two rounds, the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) has yet to finalize the definitive price determination method for GEA-3.

“We’ve been working on it, but we need to formalize the process because there will be public consultation for the rates. So there’s a process that we have to go through,” ERC chairman and CEO Monalisa Dimalanta said.

The commission earlier said that the subsequent GEA rounds may possibly not have GEAR prices to give RE developers the opportunity to offer their own bid prices.

The first GEA round took place in June 2022, attracting a total of 1,996.3 MW of RE projects. This comprised ground-mounted solar (1,490.38 MW), onshore wind (374 MW), hydro (99.15 MW) and biomass (3.4 MW).

GEA-2, on the other hand, generated a total of 3,440.756 MW of RE capacities that have been committed for development and installation from 2024 to 2026.

The DOE earlier said it plans to conduct the GEA annually to encourage developers who were not able to win in the past two rounds to participate in subsequent auction rounds.