Anchoring it on average gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate of 6.0 to 8.0-percent, the Department of Energy (DOE) had cast an industrialization pace for the country as articulated in the updated Philippine Energy Plan (PEP) stretching through year 2050.

“Consistent with the industrialization targets, the industry sector will have the fastest growth per energy requirement and will account for about a third of final energy consumption by 2050,” DOE-Energy Policy and Planning Bureau (DOE-EPPB) Director Michael Sinocruz had noted during the initial presentation of the 2030-2050 PEP to the industry stakeholders.

“Under this update, the clean energy scenario in the existing PEP will now be the reference, and we’re going to target a much higher renewable energy,” he said.

The energy official emphasized that in terms of installed capacity, RE share could reach as high as 74-percent; while the share of natural gas will be pared to 19-percent; and coal plant generation will be significantly trimmed to 11-percent.

Apart from RE, the country’s long term energy plan strategically factored in the commercial scale rollout of electric vehicles (EVs); as well as generation of cost savings and corresponding lower consumption with energy efficiency practices that shall be coupled with innovative technology deployments.

“In the reference scenario, the target is about 19-gigawatt capacity from offshore wind; and in the clean energy scenario 2, we will be more ambitious, so we are going to target a much higher offshore wind capacity of about 50GW by 2050,” he stressed.

When it comes to nuclear power technology deployments, the DOE had taken a more conservative stance – with planned installation of just 1,200 megawatts by 2032; then it will be ramped up to 2,400MW by 2035; and 4,800MW by 2050.

The decline in coal-fired power fleets in the country, the energy official stated, will be due to the planned retirements as well as repurposing of such electric generating assets.

Sinocruz primarily indicated that socioeconomic assumptions in the energy plan had been culled from figures and variables already laid down by the National Economic Development Authority (NEDA) and the Development Budget Coordination Committee of the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) as well as forecasts from HSBC’s The World report.

For 2023 energy supply-demand forecasts, the DOE followed NEDA-DBCC’s GDP growth rate estimate of 6.0 to 7.0-percent; while from 2024 to 2028; economic growth is seen accelerating in the scale of 6.5-percent to 8.0-percent.

By year 2040, the energy department projected GDP growth rate of 7.1-percent; then it will be at a slower pace of 6.3-percent through year 2050.

On population growth, the DOE had projected an increase of 1.1-percent until 2030; then it will go down to 0.9-percent from 2030 to 2040; and will ease further to 0.8-percent from 2040 to 2050.

The scale of foreign exchange rate (forex) factored in was at P55 versus the US dollar until 2050; while crude prices had been seen levelling off within the range of $70 to $90 per barrel.

The inflation rate projection that had been incorporated in the energy plan was also on the lower end of 2.0 to 4.0-percent or at midpoint of 3.0-percent from the present until year 2050.

Energy Undersecretary Giovanni Carlo J. Bacordo qualified that the updated PEP “encapsulates our ambitions oriented towards ensuring energy security and reliability, promoting energy access and affordability, and most importantly, fostering environmental sustainability.”

He expounded that “within this PEP update, we aspire for a holistic transformation of the energy sector …this accentuates our unwavering commitment to evolve and adapt in the face of emerging global energy challenges.”