Investors can now expect greater clarity and transparency in the upcoming Green Energy Auction (GEA-3) program, scheduled for November this year, as the Department of Energy (DOE) announced an end to the "tariff guessing game." To provide a more predictable framework, the DOE said it will be issuing a comprehensive "notice of auction" that includes the determined green energy auction reserve (GEAR) prices. The Energy Regulatory Commission, on the other hand, will be responsible for finalizing these prices, ensuring a fair and well-informed investment opportunity for participants. “This time, when we will issue the notice (of bidding), the GEAR prices will be issued simultaneously,” Energy Undersecretary Rowena Cristina L. Guevara said. The next batch of renewable energy (RE) capacity auction, the energy official noted, will cover geothermal developments as well as run-of-river and pumped storage hydropower projects. Under the GEA process, the DOE administers the auction of RE capacities with corresponding award of warranted power supply agreements (PSAs), while tariff-setting is done by the ERC, being the industry regulator. In the last auction of renewable energy (RE) capacities, the delayed issuance of GEAR prices had been cited as one of the major reasons some investors backpedaled on their interest to join the bidding. Timely issuance of GEAR prices significantly trimmed down their time on bid preparations. Heeding the lesson from that process then, the energy official indicated that such snag must be avoided in the next contracting round. Guevara emphasized that the final volumes across technologies as well as timeline of capacity deliveries are still being firmed up, and they will also be integrating feedback from prospective investors when it comes to projects that are already viable for developments. “We are talking to the private sector, so we’ll know which ones (projects) are ready. We don’t want to put targets anymore that can’t be met,” she stressed. For the geothermal capacities to be included in the tendering process, Guevara stated that data will already be included in the package, that way, there will be greater certainty that the targeted installations will come to fruition. “There’s already data for geothermal that we will be submitting (to the ERC), so there’s no need to guess on the pricing. Because if we don’t have data, the development will also take longer,” she pointed out. In previous bidding carried out by the energy department, via the open and competitive selection process (OCSP), 100-percent foreign investor participation was already allowed for geothermal projects through financial and technical assistance agreements. A Circular issued by the DOE in 2020 prescribed that foreign investors can participate in large-scale geothermal projects with an initial investment of US$50 million – and the venture must cover both exploration of steam resource and power plant installation. For hydro, full foreign participation is open on the power plant side of project development, but utilization of water resources must comply with the Philippine Constitution’s mandate on nationality restrictions.