Philippines publishes national renewable energy programme to 2040

According to the NREP (1.79MB / 104-page), by reaching these goals, the Philippines’ government wants to meet people’s growing electricity need with cleaner energy resources, to adapt renewable energy more widely and to use hybrid technologies, to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and to mitigate climate change.

To meet the renewable goals, the country will need to install another 102 gigawatts (GW) electricity capacity by 2040 including 27GW solar, 17GW wind, 6GW hydro, 2.5GW geothermal and 364MW biomass.

As of 31 December 2021, a total of 901MW committed renewable power generation projects are expected to be operational from 2022-2027. Among these, 54% of projects are solar and 26% are hydro.

Renewables expert John Yeap of Pinsent Masons said: “It is exceedingly encouraging to see the Philippines setting out an aggressive energy policy but as the numbers from the report identify, there is a tremendous need for new capacity and that can only be filled partially by today’s technology. Clearing the impediments to fully utilise resources, such as constitutional requirements on the ownership of natural resources, will help to achieve these targets.”

The NREP proposes four solutions to help reach the renewable goals. These are renewable transition pathways that identify the mandatory policies and voluntary programmes which will build a strong need and market for renewable energy; renewable transition enablers that help to create suitable environment for renewable investments via laws, programmes and activities; renewable energy for off-grid and productive use of renewable strategies to support social service delivery, livelihoods and quality of life in rural communities and off-grid areas; and developing specific renewable programmes and technologies.

Specific programmes cover offshore wind, waste-to-energy, expanded rooftop solar and geothermal generation. The government also plans to develop new renewable technologies in hydrogen and ocean and tidal stream energy.

“The Philippines also has significant opportunities around nature based solutions to the challenge of carbon. The Philippines can therefore not only address its climate change ambitions through renewable or low/no carbon resources, but also through participating in carbon removal and sequestration,” Yeap said.

The Philippines government proposed the NREP in November 2021.