FURTHER streamlining the investment rules on clean energy development ventures will attract more renewable energy developers, a Congress leader said on Friday.
Citing a report by London-based global energy think tank Ember, Camarines Sur Rep. Luis Raymund Villafuerte said the Department of Energy’s program to accelerate the country’s transition from fossil fuel to renewable energy sources “appears to have stalled.”
He noted Ember’s findings that the share of coal in electricity generation rose for the 15th consecutive year in 2023, accounting for almost 62 percent of all power generated in the Philippines, from about 59 percent in 2022.
He said Ember’s report points to “the urgency for the government to generate far more investments in RE generation to eventually reverse the current direction in which the steady growth in the electricity requirements of our growing economy is still being met by fossil fuel instead of renewables.”
“Hence, the need for the further streamlining of our investment rules, especially with regard to the issuance by host-LGUs of business permits to RE investors, with an eye to generating more clean energy in order to raise the combined share of renewables in the national energy mix to meet the DOE target of 35 percent by 2030 and a higher 50 percent by 2040,” he said.
Villafuerte, the National Unity president, stressed that attracting a lot more investments in RE generation is needed to reduce the country’s dependence on “dirty fuel.”
He noted that Camarines Sur is poised to become the country’s center for wind energy generation, with at least 16 projects projected to generate over 7,000 megawatts (MW).
These projects include the P162.9-billion project of Danish infrastructure investment firm Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP) on San Miguel Bay, which will become the first and single biggest offshore wind (OSW) farm in the country.
The move to streamline the investment rules on clean energy will also keep the Marcos administration on track with its ambitious decarbonization goal of generating half of the country’s energy needs from renewables by 2040.
