DOE kicks off 2nd Green Energy Auction

MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Energy (DOE) has kicked off the second round of the Green Energy Auction or GEA-2 to further accelerate the growth of renewable energy in pursuit of the government’s energy transition goal.

The DOE has issued a notice of auction inviting all qualified suppliers to participate in the GEA-2.

The GEA-2 will offer a total capacity of 11,600 megawatts (MW) installation target, with 3,600 MW for 2024, 3,600 MW for 2025, and 4,400 MW for 2026.

To be auctioned are renewable energy capacities of 7,715 MW in Luzon, 2,695 MW in Visayas, and 1,190 MW in Mindanao from 2024 to 2026.

The installation targets for 2024 and 2025 cover ground-mounted and roof-mounted solar, onshore wind, and biomass.

For 2026, the targets will also include floating solar and waste-to-energy capacities.

The DOE said the issuance of the notice of auction triggers the series of activities toward the target conduct of auction in June.

Pursuant to the guidelines of the Green Energy Auction Program (GEAP), the agency will   issue the terms of reference and the auction round procedures 20 days after the issuance of the notice of auction.

The Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC), on the other hand, will issue the Green Energy Auction Reserve (GEAR) prices and its methodology 30 days after the notice of auction issuance.

“While the GEA-2 is expected to encourage more investments in power generation, it further pursues to promote the growth of renewable energy as one of the country’s primary sources of energy by facilitating transparent and competitive selection of renewable energy facilities to support the major goal of the government of attaining energy

security through the entry of new capacities in the grid,” the DOE said.

The GEAP was designed to continuously trigger the increase of renewable energy capacity in the country.

This will help realize the government’s target of 35 percent renewable energy share in the energy mix by 2030 and 50 percent by 2040.

The program aims to ensure transparent and competitive selection of renewable energy facilities to achieve reasonable rates and encourage, as far as practicable, the renewable energy entrants in the system.

A total of 19 contracts were awarded by the DOE to various renewable energy developers after conducting the first round of the GEAP in June last year.

The first round of auction was considered a success, after having successfully generated almost 2,000 MW of capacities that were committed to deliver energy from 2023 to 2025 at a com-petitive price lower than or equal to the GEAR prices set by the ERC.

Meanwhile, the DOE said it would revisit the data and the status of various ongoing run-on-river (ROR) hydro projects to enable the determination of the auction capacities for the succeeding green energy auction rounds, the earliest of which is by the fourth quarter of the year.

According to the agency, the installation target of 350 MW under the Feed-In-Tariff (FIT) for ROR hydro remained unsubscribed, with an available capacity of 177.217 MW as of February 2023.