The Philippines' Department of Energy (DoE) has published the list of operational renewable energy projects that are eligible for the renewable portfolio standards (RPS), which mandates the country's electricity providers to source an agreed portion of their energy supply from renewable energy power projects.
The list includes 62 solar projects totaling 1,312.9MW, 36 hydropower facilities equaling 412.8MW, 36 biomass schemes with an aggregate capacity of 264.8MW, seven wind farms with a total power of 409.9MW, and six geothermal power plants totaling 218.5MW.
As for the solar source, the selected projects range in size from 0.21 to 100.6MW. According to the document, some plants have already been operating under the country's FIT scheme, while others were planned to operate under the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM) or a bilateral power purchase agreement (PPA).
According to the DOE Secretary, Alfonso Cusi, around 8.5GW of renewable energy projects participated in the selection process.
The minimum level of electricity contracted from renewable energy (RE) developers under the RPS scheme is currently 1% but the DoE is now considering raising it to 2.52% starting from 2023.
Recent statistics released by the International Renewable Energy Agency show that the Philippines had an installed PV capacity of 1.04GW under the country's renewable energy law at the end of 2020. Most of the nation’s solar facilities were secured under the old feed-in tariff regime, auctions, and net metering programs.
The government of the Philippines also launched a 2GW renewables auction last June. Overall, it plans to install 15GW of renewables capacity by 2030.
