Continuing PH Green Transition Anticipated from Next Administration

The Philippines has made significant starting strides for its green transition, putting more emphasis on the use of clean and renewable energy instead of maintaining its dependence on coal. In line with this, the Energy Development Corp. (EDC) remains hopeful that the following administration who will prevail in the upcoming elections would choose to further the progress that has already been done.

Erwin Avante, the Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of the EDC, acknowledged that the current administration has provided the necessary support to increase the country’s renewable energy (RE) capacity by establishing mechanisms and attracting investors that are well-versed in the space.

“We are very hopeful that the next administration will be able to continue whatever the current administration has as far as supporting the renewable energy. The current administration is very supportive of RE and actually, they’ve put in place a lot of frameworks. Hopefully, they will be able to continue that and probably consider more to better ease the transition to more RE moving forward,” explained Avante.

With the recent lifting of the moratorium on new coal power projects, he also added that the country needs to “accelerate the retirement of coal plants and expand the coal moratorium.” “But I think talking about transitioning to cleaner energy, we need to address the elephant in the room which is coal. GHG [greenhouse gas] emission of Philippines, over 50 percent comes from the energy sector and a big contributor of that is because of the energy mix.”

“If you look at the power generation mix of the country in 2015, about mid-40s is coal and by 2020, it increased to about mid-50s, about 54 percent. Carbon footprint of coal plant versus geothermal, it is seven times more,” Avante elaborated. “With the coal moratorium, it actually provided exemptions on plants that are in the pipeline or are in the planning stage right now. So, we could see a situation that even by 2040, we will still have about 10 GW of coal installed capacity.”

During the most recent COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, the country’s representatives affirmed the Philippines’ commitment to supporting the global transition from coal to clean power. However, there was no clear pledge regarding the phasing out of coal power projects in the country.

“A lot of foreign banks and some local banks made a public declaration to stop funding coal. That is very crucial,” noted Avante. Under the Department of Energy’s updated Energy Plan 2020-2040, the goal is to increase the share of renewable energy within the power mix to 35% by 2030 and 50% by 2040.

“We cannot behave like developed economies since we are a developing country. Nonetheless, we remain committed to a gradual transition to renewable energy. The immediate transition will entail additional cost so we must strike a healthy balance in protecting our consumers and our economy and our quest for a cleaner environment,” said Energy Secretary Alfonso Cusi.

Source: BusinessMirror