AC Energy building 500 MW renewable energy projects

MANILA, Philippines — Listed AC Energy Philippines Inc. is putting up 500 megawatts (MW) of renewable energy (RE) projects in the Philippines next year to take part in raising the country’s renewables capacity to 35 percent by 2025.

The company will start constructing a 500-MW project next year, which will add to the 180 MW under construction, AC Energy president and CEO Eric Francia said in a recent virtual briefing.

“We have 180 MW under construction of renewable energy and as I mentioned, in the next 12 months we expect to add to that, to start the construction of another 500-MW in the Philippines,” he said.

“The power plants should be ready by 2023 because we believe by 2023 or 2024 incremental demand will come back,” Francia said.

The projects lined up will allow the Ayala-led firm to take part in the Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS).

RPS is a market-based policy that requires power distribution utilities (DUs), electric cooperatives, and retail electricity suppliers (RES) to source an agreed portion of their energy supply from eligible renewable energy RE facilities.

It is among the measures under the Renewable Energy Act of 2008 to raise the renewable energy production and meet renewables targets.

The country is targeting a 35 percent renewable energy share in the power generation mix by 2030.

“A lot of this is also in line with RPS requirements. We decided not to wait for the green auction because RPS is already in place,” Francia said.

The company official was referring to the green energy tariff program policy signed by Energy Secretary Alfonso Cusi in July.

The policy contains the green energy tariff which will “provide price signals on the commercial value of electricity generated from renewable energy facilities,” which will be the basis of a benchmark rate for renewable energy in the country.

It also lays down the green energy auction which will facilitate supply contracting by qualified suppliers with eligible customers under a competitive process.

Rules for the green auction are being drafted.

Earlier, DOE Assistant Secretary Redentor Delola said the country still has time to polish the rules since most DUs are still compliant with the RPS policy.

Francia noted, however, that the government must eventually raise the RPS target from just one percent to be able to meet the 35 percent renewable energy share in 10 years.

“My hope is that over time, the government will increase that. At the current level of RPS, which is at one percent annual increment, we will not get to the 35 percent share of RE output by 2030. We are currently at 21 percent,” he said.

The RPS level is set at one percent until 2022.

“If we are serious to be at 35 percent, we agree with NREB that the one percent increment must go up to 2.5 percent by 2023 or 2024,” Francia said.

Moreover, the higher target would allow a bigger market for utilities to purchase renewable energy, as well as to build more renewable energy plants.