The Philippines may see offshore wind power generation by 2030 at the earliest, an energy executive said Thursday.
PetroGreen Energy Corp. vice president Francisco Delfin said the 2030 OSW target was based on an optimistic scenario.
“Even as the energy, environmental, scientific, technological and commercial imperatives of large-scale OSW development are clear and compelling, we must be realistic that significant obstacles exist that can prevent the country from achieving those benefits,” Delfin said in a commentary on Philippine Resources.
“At the most optimistic scenario, the earliest the country can see OSW power generation would be around 2030. If the Marcos Jr. administration hopes to compress this timeline to around 2028, then much work and hard decisions must be done now,” he said.
PGEC is a subsidiary of publicly-listed PetroEnergy Resources Corp., which is building OSW projects with a capacity of about 4,000 megawatts.
Delfin said OSW challenges come from policy alignment and infrastructure development.
“Building on the welcome lifting of foreign equity restrictions on renewables, realignment of differing or conflicting policies among executive agencies involved in maritime resources and grid connection is absolutely crucial,” he said.
He said the Department of Energy should be in charge of all permits on behalf of other government units.
“Private developers should only face the DOE in securing national government approvals; in turn, the DOE should be vested with procedural rights, through an Executive Order, to issue all permits on behalf of other agencies so long as the latters’ substantive rules on offshore wind are respected by the DOE,” he said.
Delfin said supporting infrastructures are critical to make the OSW industry viable. These are high-voltage transmission connection, ports and harbors and an offtake mechanism for power generated.
He said the Energy Regulatory Commissions should study an offtake auction mechanism exclusive to OSW.
“For the government, this is a way to kick-start development by structuring auction to realize early capacity at the lowest possible cost,” he said.
“For private developers and lenders, offtake security via auction enhances commitment to mobilize risk money and motivates efficiency and innovation,” Delfin said.
