The Senate is poised to mount an inquiry to scrutinize the Duterte administration’s energy transition plan in the wake of the Department of Energy’s (DOE) imposition of a ban against new coal-powered plants to fast-track the shift to cleaner energy.
Senator Sherwin Gatchalian, energy committee chairman, paved the way for the upcoming probe in filing a resolution to look into the DOE’s power supply transition plan.
The Gatchalian Resolution affirmed the importance of the country having a clear energy transition framework to meet its commitments under the Paris Agreement focused on reducing greenhouse gases emissions (GHG) through the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) to reduce the country’s GHG by 70 percent by 2030.
The senator was keen to know “until when will the coal moratorium be?”
Moreover, Gatchalian asked: “How can other technologies fill in the gap left by coal and how do we ensure that power cost will not increase while ensuring continuous supply?”
He noted that “at this point it is uncertain if the moratorium that was issued by the DOE is in the context of a larger energy transition plan and what the higher targets are for renewable energy (RE) and alternative fuels within a specific timeframe.”
Suggesting that “investing in renewable energy is the win-win solution for sustained economic growth in the country,” Gatchalian adds that “we can have cleaner air at a much cheaper price and RE investments can bring in lots of job opportunities especially since many of our kababayans lost their jobs during this pandemic.”
At the same time, the Senator recalled that the Philippines recorded a 5.4-percent jump in total GHG emissions from 123.3 million tons of CO2 equivalent (MtCO2e) in 2018 to 130 million MtCO2e in 2019, adding that as of 2019, the power generator sector has the largest share in total GHG emissions at 53.2 percent followed by the transport sector at 27.3 percent.
He added that the percentage of coal in the power generation mix increased to 54.59 percent in 2019 from 26.6 percent in 2009 while RE’s share in the power generation mix decreased to 20.79 percent in 2019 from 32.6 percent in 2009.
Gatchalian also cited a study done by Fitch Solutions, a macroeconomic and country risk research house, showing the Philippines is expected to “continue its dependence on coal in the coming years” with coal accounting for 59 percent of the country’s energy mix by 2029.
The Senator stressed the need to “look into the country’s energy transition plan, or lack thereof, in aid of legislation, with the end view of developing and ensuring an equitable, secure and sustainable energy transition.”