The interest of foreign investors in the country’s renewable energy (RE) sector is still at its wobbly pace, hence, the Department of Energy (DOE) is sorting out strategies to whet their appetite for fresh wave of capital infusion – and one game plan it is pursuing will be business-to-business (B2B) matching activity.

The B2B harmonization activity which is slated this February 22, according to the energy department, has been targeted to “assist foreign investors in finding local partners to support the country’s energy transition program.”

On the viewpoint of most foreign investors, the Philippines is a highly complicated market and many of them have been leaning on the support of local partners to navigate the complexities of project-developments, primarily the Gordian knot of permitting as well as the dizzying implementation of policy and regulatory frameworks for investments.

In any contemplated business marriage, most foreign investors are also undertaking comprehensive due diligence activities so they won’t end up with con players or with scheming parties who are using dummies; and even politicians who are just interested in selling their properties for project-sites.

Energy Secretary Raphael P.M. Lotilla claimed “there is a heightened enthusiasm from international investors for unlocking the country’s RE potential, and we are linking them with financing institutions, development organizations, concerned government institutions, and engineering, procurements, and construction (EPC) companies for potential partnerships and access to financing.”

The energy chief added “this activity will guide potential RE investors and developers in doing business in the country as we realize our goal of achieving 35% share of RE in the power generation mix by 2030 and 50% by 2040.”

Beyond government declarations of ‘high interest’, however, the reality on the project development space will be for these targeted ventures to still turn into tangible investment-dollars.

Primarily, it is worth noting that in the last GEA, bulk of the contracts were cornered by local investors; and the foreign companies which participated were mostly the ones who already have experience doing business in the Philippines.

The anemic interest of investors had been largely blamed on a very short timeframe for bid preparations, especially for foreign investors; the lower-than-expected green energy auction reserve (GEAR) prices set by the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC); as well as uncertain operational game plan for grid integration of the additional RE capacities.

On those confluence of factors, only 30% out of the 11,600 megawatts of offered RE installations had cornered qualified tenders – and that is a strong signal for government leaders to ‘work harder’ when it comes to improving policy and regulatory toolboxes; and make the entire investment terrain more enticing compared to what other markets in the region could offer to these foreign capitalists.

Via the B2B matching session, Lotilla emphasized “our main objective for this event is to assist investors, listen and understand the challenges in implementing RE projects, and facilitate addressing their concerns.”

He expounded “to meet our energy transition goal, we are utilizing this platform where participants can identify potential business partners, investors, expertise, technologies or business strengths.”

As of January this year, the DOE reported that it already awarded 1,267 projects with RE service contracts – and when these installations would reach commercial fruition, they could add up  129,000 megawatts of clean energy capacities into the country’s power supply.

The DOE is scheduling at least two rounds of RE capacity auction this year – one will be for the more conventional RE technologies like geothermal and hydro; while the other will be for the emerging technologies like solar, wind, biomass and will potentially include technology coupling with energy storage systems.