COPENHAGEN – A government-to-government collaboration is currently being discussed between the Philippines and Denmark for an "advisory work" that the Danish Energy Agency (DEA) could extend to the emerging offshore wind industry of the Philippines. In meetings with various relevant agencies in Denmark, including with his counterpart at the Ministry of Climate, Energy and Public Utilities, Energy Secretary Raphael P. M. Lotilla has raised the need of the country for "expert advisory work’ that could help shape the policies as well as planning to reinforce capital flow into the Philippine offshore wind industry. The key concerns of the Philippines on its nascent offshore wind industry are those on: massive scale grid integration of offshore wind energy capacities; environmental assessments as well as harmonization of project permitting. During a discussion with the DEA, the Philippine energy chief primarily queried on the process flow as to how the targeted "energy cooperation" could be clinched by the country, including the requirements to be submitted and even the involvement of other key agencies, primarily the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) in firming up the targeted collaboration. Within Southeast Asia, the DEA which is operating under the Energy Ministry of Denmark, has been assisting Indonesia on its energy transition program – primarily on accelerating its renewable energy investments to 23-percent by 2025 from a low of just 6.0-percent when DEA started extending its advisory work in 2018. In a separate interview, Danish Ambassador to the Philippines Franz-Michael Mellbin affirmed that “we can now have a request from the Philippine government to Denmark for advisory services.” He stated “this one will be processed, so the question will be to find financing for this – there are various opportunities in Denmark and when the request comes in formally, we will take a look and see if we can find financing.” The assistance for the offshore wind industry of the Philippines, he said, “could be in the form of advisors coming to the Philippines – and that will now be decided based on the Philippine government setting.” The Danish envoy further noted “we will definitely see more cooperation on the government-to-government side; and there have been several discussions about what Denmark could offer to the Philippines for its offshore wind industry development.” In turn, Mellbin divulged that the government of Dennmark has extended its invitation to the Philippines to join the “Global Offshore Lines Cooperation Program”, a collaborative initiative between and among countries to promote the development of offshore wind energy in various parts of the world. The program currently has 14 member-countries, including Denmark. “There may be an interest for the Philippines to accept the Danish invitation to become part of the Global Offshore Lines – the Philippines has been invited to be part of that, so it can also benefit on the sharing of expertise of some of the countries that are now advancing on offshore wind developments. And I’m optimistic that we’ll find ways to cooperate for those,” he stressed. The ambassador expounded that the Global Offshore Line Program “is a group of countries committed to large-scale offshore wind deployment; and the offshore wind industry is growing very quickly now, so there are a lot of opportunities to extend information and experiences on, for example, what does the mobilization of key port and resources take to be able to achieve the goals because there would be bottlenecks that we will see coming up over the next few years.” He added that the other concerns being tackled through that program are “the onboarding of offshore wind into the electricity system; and then directly to industries and selected consumers or through the grid systems,” emphasizing that for many host-countries of offshore wind projects, “these are the questions that everybody has been dealing with; and what they do at the Global Offshore Lines is they come together and exchange information on resolving these questions.” The program, Mellbin conveyed, has also been aiding member-energy markets, not just on knowledge and expertise sharing, but also on the areas of technology development and innovations, project financing as well as regulatory frameworks. The other spheres of collaboration include development of transnational offshore wind farms, such as what is being pursued in the North Sea Wind Hub; sharing of best practices on cost-efficient development of support infrastructure for offshore wind farms, including those on port facilities; as well as sharing of equipment and resources for wind projects.