There was some degree of frustration on the part of the renewable energy (RE) developers, as their widely anticipated capacity tendering under the Green Energy Auction Program (GEAP) has been delayed again from its August 31 timeline.
The RE investors are ready to place their bets for the targeted 2,000 megawatts of RE capacity covered with power supply agreements (PSAs) in the State-sponsored RE auction.
The original schedule was initially slated middle of this year, then it was moved to August 31, but had to be rescheduled once more as there are still fine-tuning in policies by the Department of Energy (DOE), the overseer of the GEAP process.
According to Energy Assistant Secretary Redentor E. Delola, the department is “working on additional provisions as instructed by the Secretary (Alfonso Cusi),” primarily on the additional options that shall be warranted to the distribution utilities (DUs), being the off-taker of the RE capacities that will be successfully offered under the GEAP.
Another work-in-progress relative to the RE capacity auction is on establishing the ‘green energy auction reserve price’ or GEAR tariff that shall serve as the price ceiling for the capacity offers.
Sharon Montañer, chief of the Renewable Energy Division of the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC), noted that they will need to wait first for the amended Department Circular of the DOE before they can kick off deliberations on the GEAR price.
Part of the determination process for the GEAR price, it was emphasized, shall be consultation undertakings with the affected and other relevant stakeholders.
Given the remaining tasks through the maze of policymaking and the GEAR tariff setting, there are expectations that the green energy auction might further slide in the forthcoming months or even to next year.
Nevertheless, that could stall the flow of fresh capital in the RE sector, because many prospective developers are largely leaning on the implementation of GEAP before they can advance to final investment decision (FID) phase on their targeted projects.
GEAP is a policy underpinning of the Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS), an incentive mechanism that shall provide alternative market to RE capacities that shall form part of the installations that will concretize the country’s ‘clean energy’ shift moving forward.