While insisting that the coal moratorium stays, Energy Secretary Sharon Garin indicated that the Department of Energy (DOE) is giving the country’s aging coal plants a not-so-gentle performance review—especially those that keep “calling in sick” through repeated forced outages that strain the grid to its snapping point during peak summer months.

“What we’re doing is evaluating the coal power plants to identify which ones are already due for retirement, because too many are still running but breaking down, and it’s the consumers who end up paying for their inefficiency,” she said.

It must be emphasized that coal plant retirements are not a new agenda item. Past DOE leaderships sketched the same exit strategy long before it became today’s talking point. However, previous efforts to retire these fossil relics have repeatedly stalled, and the record speaks for itself. The real question now is whether this latest push will finally succeed in decisively pulling the plug on outdated and inefficient coal capacities.

From an environmental standpoint, the case is stark and well-settled: science has long shown that coal plants are among the most powerful accelerators of climate change. Every ton of coal burned pumps massive amounts of carbon dioxide (CO2 ) into the atmosphere, the dominant greenhouse gas driving global warming. This, in turn, triggers a cascade of consequences, from extreme weather events and rising seas to ecosystems pushed to the brink of collapse.

While a coal plant’s operating life cycle can stretch 30 to 50 years, that longevity comes at a price. Constant maintenance and repeated upgrades are required just to keep aging infrastructure barely competitive and compliant. At some point, it becomes cheaper to shut them down than to keep patching them up.

In other markets, coal plants are routinely given mid-life upgrades around the 20-year mark to squeeze out efficiency and cut emissions through new technology. In the Philippines, however, that level of modernization has largely been missing, leaving older coal fleets to age without the reinvention that other markets have embraced.

Accordingly, while coal was traditionally sold as cheap, dependable baseload power, the energy math has changed. New and even existing coal plants can now be more expensive to run than cleaner alternatives like solar and wind—or even natural gas when markets are stable.

Beyond the economics, there are grid flexibility issues. Coal plants are designed to run continuously and cannot ramp up or down quickly. In contrast, modern power grids increasingly rely on flexible systems that can adjust supply in real time to accommodate the high integration of variable renewables. Coal simply isn’t suited for these responsive operations.

Furthermore, coal plants require massive amounts of water for cooling, straining local supplies and harming aquatic ecosystems through heated discharge—an issue especially critical in water-stressed areas.

Another critical thread in this discourse is the shift in capital. While a few Philippine banks are still willing to finance coal, the broader financial market is backing away. This technology is increasingly seen as a long-term risk that could turn into “stranded assets”—expensive facilities that cannot recover their costs due to policy shifts, market changes, or competition from renewables, which continue to see a decline in technology costs.

Garin reiterated that the coal moratorium remains in place. However, projects greenlit before the advisory ban—those that already crossed key milestones like permitting, pre-development, or financing—will still move forward. Based on previous DOE estimates, such capacity additions could hover around 20 gigawatts. Garin pointed out that the department is actively pushing these approved projects to accelerate implementation to help beef up the country’s electricity supply.

Despite the Secretary’s verbal clarification, the policy on paper leaves unsettling ambiguities. Specifically, a “clarification advisory” issued by the DOE last year states that:

“New capacity from on-grid coal-fired power plants may be allowed solely under exceptional circumstances, such as during a declared or imminent power crisis or when there is an imminent shortage of electricity supply...”

The reference to a “declared or imminent power crisis” is a built-in pressure valve that can be easily triggered or abused. In environments where “emergency” declarations are sometimes made faster than evidence can validate, that tightly defined exception could become a broad gateway for more coal capacity.

One must also not overlook that the advisory gives the DOE the discretion to determine what counts as an “imminent supply shortage,” a provision many interpret as conflicting with the Electric Power Industry Reform Act (EPIRA). Section 71 of the EPIRA expressly states that upon the President's determination of an imminent shortage, Congress may authorize additional generating capacity through a joint resolution.

Therefore, the law suggests that determining a “supply shortage” in a crisis is a shared function of the Executive and Legislative branches. Any approval for new capacity must come with Congressional oversight, rather than being unilaterally initiated by the DOE.

Indisputably, coal remains the biggest long-term question mark in the Philippines’ energy future. Since the DOE has set potential retirement or conversion timelines for some plants as far out as 2060, the real outcome of these end-of-life promises may unfold long after those debating them today are gone.