The Department of Energy said Monday it plans to bid out 21 renewable energy sites for private sector development.
Energy assistant secretary Mylene Capongcol said the agency was initially looking at bidding out 15 hydro, three geothermal and three wind sites by next year.
“Those are service contracts that were terminated. Those are small ones [in terms of capacity], but we already conducted the resource assessment for that,” Capongcol said.
The DOE held the third open and competitive selection process in January 2021 where five geothermal areas and 17 hydro areas were offered for private sector participation.
Energy undersecretary Giovanni Carlo Bacordo said hydro areas offered under the 4th OCSP would have a total capacity of 101.35 megawatts.
Bacordo said the private sector support in the development and utilization of these RE resources would significantly contribute to the energy supply requirements of the Philippines.
“By 2040, the department aims to significantly increase the shares of cleaner energy sources in the energy mix, with the development of more renewable energy sources which are supported by the more flexible plants fueled by natural gas,” Bacordo told participants of the recently concluded Norway-Philippines Maritime & Energy Conference.
The agency crafted the Philippine Energy Plan 2020-2040 which provides ambitious targets to make the energy transition a reality.
“Under the Clean Energy Scenario of the Plan, we aim to achieve the aspirational target of at least 35 percent RE share of the total generation mix by 2030 and 50 percent share by 2040, which is in line with the goals of the National Renewable Energy Program,” Bacordo said.
He said the Philippines had identified 25 strategic areas with the highest wind and solar resource concentration.
“The country has a total potential capacity of 58,110 MW solar, as well as the potential for other RE sources such as wind, geothermal, hydro, and biomass,” Bacordo said.
The country also has the potential to install 178 gigawatts of offshore wind power with the right long-term vision, policies, infrastructure development and investments based on the recently released Philippines Offshore Wind Roadmap, he said.
Bacordo said investor support in the development and utilization of these RE resources would significantly contribute to the country’s energy supply requirements.