The advisory body tasked to effectively implement renewable-energy (RE) projects in the country said on Monday that the country could still hit the 35-percent RE target in the power generation mix by 2030 despite declining numbers for the past years.
“Yes, we can still get to 35-percent RE share by 2030. It’s still achievable and what do we have as a tool to get there? We have a program that’s been mandated in the RE Act and already implemented, actually this is the first year that we are implementing the RPS [Renewable Portfolio Standards], so we will use the RPS to get there,” said National Renewable Energy Board (NREB) Chairman Monalisa Dimalanta during “The Future Energy Show Philippines” in which she talked about the RE adoption in the country.
RPS requires distribution utilities (DUs) to source 1 percent of their power supply from eligible RE sources such as biomass, waste-to-energy technology, wind energy, solar energy, run-of-river hydroelectric power systems, hydroelectric power systems, ocean energy, and geothermal energy.
The RPS level is currently set at a 1 percent level. The strategy of NREB is to keep that level at 1 percent for 2020 to 2022 and then increased to 2.52 percent moving forward.
“But after 2022, we have to start increasing that level to what we have computed. If we increase it to 2.52 percent all the way to 2023 to 2040, it will take us to a 37.3-percent RE share by 2030 and by 2040 that share is actually going to be almost 56 percent of our supply mix,” she said.
In 2019, the share of RE in the country’s generation mix stood at 20.8 percent from 23.38 percent in 2018. Coal continues to dominate the mix at 54.6 percent, followed by gas at 21.1 percent and oil at 3.5 percent.
In 2014 and 2015, RE’s share in the mix stood at the 25 percent level. It fell to 24.21 percent in 2016 and slightly increased to 24.57 percent in 2017.
By 2030, NREB is expecting that the share of RE in the generation mix would be at 37.3 percent. Coal would still be on the top at 41 percent, gas at 21.3 percent while oil at less than 1 percent. RE would soon lead the mix at 55.8 percent by 2040, overtaking coal at 29.7 percent, gas at 14.2 percent and oil at 0.3 percent.
“If we are still committed to getting an increased RE share by 2030, and having that trajectory continue to increase forward, this is what we need to do with what we have. Again the idea is, if we will not ask for any more legislation, if we are not to ask for additional incentives, this is what we have and this what we need to do. This will get us to more than 37 percent by 2030 and almost 56 percent by 2040,” Dimalanta pointed out.
Earlier, an official from the Department of Energy (DOE) said the RPS rules are being reviewed.
“The RPS rule, does it really drive the utilization of RE? Does it increase? We are trying to review if the one-percent increment would still be able to help us reach our target, or we may revisit it and probably increase it a little bit so we may be able to reach our target,” said DOE assistant secretary Redentor Delola. “This is way for us to be able to not just comply with RPS requirement but do our share as we built a more resilient and more reliable system as we supply the needs of consumers.”
The country’s RE goals have yet to be fully achieved after 10 years since the RA 9513 or the Renewable Energy (RE) Act was enacted.