‘Long way to go to hit 35 percent target RE share’

MANILA, Philippines — The government and the private sector are facing a difficult task ahead as the Philippines will need to add about 18,000 megawatts (MW) of new renewable energy capacity to attain the goal of increasing the share of RE in its power generation mix to 35 percent by 2030, a top energy company executive said.

“As a country, as we all know, we’re targeting 35 percent renewables share of output. We’re now at 22 percent,” ACEN president and CEO Eric Francia said.

“By our estimation, if we are to reach 35 percent by 2030, on top of the five to six percent annual demand growth, our estimation given that most of that renewable technologies will come from solar and wind, which will have relatively lower capacity factor than geothermal, hydro and biomass which will no doubt happen albeit on a lesser scale, our estimate is we would need to build around 18,000 MW or 18 gigawatts of renewables between today and 2030. That is an astounding task ahead of us,” he said.

Francia said the good news is that out of the 18 GW, around five GW have already been awarded through the first two rounds of the government’s green energy auction.

“The Department of Energy thankfully is aligned with that and therefore bid out 11 GW in the last GEAP (green energy auction program). It was a wake-up call to the industry. It was undersubscribed but to me, it’s really a wake-up call for the industry to step up to the plate and fill that gap,” he said.

ACEN, the energy platform of the Ayala Group, is ramping up the country’s RE capacity through the company’s aggressive expansion.

The company has about 4,400 MW of attributable capacity from owned facilities in the Philippines, Australia, Vietnam, Indonesia and India, with a renewable share of 98 percent.

It aims to be the largest listed renewables platform in Southeast Asia, with a goal of reaching 20 gigawatts of renewables capacity by 2030.

ACEN is also committed to transition the company’s generation portfolio to 100 percent RE by 2025, and become a net zero greenhouse gas emissions company by 2050.

“ACEN is one of the more ambitious and aggressive companies committing to 100 percent renewables,” Francia said.

“We’ve set an aspiration of 20 GW of renewables by 2030, with Philippines being our largest market where we expect at least eight GW of renewables by 2030. So there is a lot to be done for the balance of the decade,” he said.