MANILA, Philippines — The government is intensifying its clean energy campaign, targeting a massive injection of solar, wind, and alternative power assets to reshape the country’s generation landscape.The Department of Energy (DOE) announced plans to secure an additional 20 gigawatts (GW) of renewable energy capacity through upcoming competitive bidding rounds.
The aggressive expansion is required to meet the state’s long-term mandate of sourcing exactly half (50%) of the country’s entire electricity mix from renewables by the year 2040.
The 20-GW target serves as the second phase of a massive, multi-decade green procurement grid overseen by Energy Secretary Sharon Garin:
[Completed Milestone] ──────► 20 GW Already Awarded via Previous Green Energy Auctions (GEA)
│
▼ (The 2040 Structural Target)
[The Remaining Deficit] ◄── 20 GW More Capacity Required via Brand-New Auction Batches
“We project that we will need to conduct additional GEAs for around 20 gigawatts more capacity… to reach 50 percent by 2040,” Garin told reporters during an executive briefing. Currently, the share of renewable energy in the Philippine grid sits at a stagnant 25%—meaning the country is racing against a tight deadline to hit its near-term intermediate benchmark of 35% by 2031.
To entice private sector developers and global asset managers into the space, the DOE is relying heavily on its Green Energy Auction (GEA) program, which guarantees winning power producers long-term, fixed electricity tariffs.
[ UPCOMING BIDDING SEGMENTS ]
│
┌───────────────────────────────┴───────────────────────────────┐
▼ ▼
[ HIGH-CAPACITY OFFSHORE ] [ DIVERSIFIED BASELOADS ]
• Launching specialized auction grids for utility-scale • Opening auction pools for biomass facilities and regional
offshore wind farms. municipal waste-to-energy generation plants.
Geographically, the upcoming seventh round of the GEA will pivot heavily toward Mindanao. Energy planners want to rapidly deploy green infrastructure in the southern island to satisfy spiking local electricity demand while promoting a more stable, decentralized power network nationwide. A parallel clean-energy batch is also being finalized for deployment across the Visayas.
Because solar and wind power are inherently intermittent (dependent on weather conditions), scaling up renewable capacity creates severe technical challenges for the transmission grid. To protect system stability, the DOE has issued a key operational mandate alongside infrastructure upgrades:
- Mandatory Battery Integration: The DOE now requires all clean-power developers to equip their solar and wind farms with integrated Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS). This ensures that excess electricity produced during peak sunshine or high winds is stored chemically, rather than wasted, and released back into the grid only when consumer demand spikes.
- Transmission Grid Coordination: DOE Undersecretary Rowena Cristina Guevara confirmed that the agency is in daily coordination with the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) to map out necessary substation expansions. Guevara reported that the private transmission operator has successfully accommodated the influx of capacity won during previous auction cycles, indicating that the baseline physical network is ready to absorb the next wave of green infrastructure.
