Philippines urge renewable energy developers to invest $25bn by 2030

The federal government of Philippines has urged renewable energy developers to invest nearly $25bn over the next 17 years to increase country’s clean energy capacity by three-fold.

The Department of Energy (DOE) is keen to strengthen renewable energy portfolio to 15,400MW by 2030, from the current capacity of 5,400MW.

Commenting on the developments, DOE renewable energy management bureau assistant director Marissa Cerezo was quoted by Malaya Business News Online as saying that majority of the power production in the country is contributed from fossil fuel and nearly 10% of the population has no access to electricity.

"Energy self-reliance is a goal of every country, and with the huge amount of energy resources in the country, I think these resources would play a major role in displacing fossil fuels and eventually attaining our goal of being self-sufficient," added Cerezo.

"We are confident because we have plenty of renewable energy resources and there are a lot of interested developers."

A joint study undertaken by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and the World Resources Institute (WRI) claimed that the prime reason for Philippines’ low clean power production is the lack of motivation for renewable energy projects.

Nevertheless, Cerezo said that the government has formulated feed-in-tariff (FIT) mechanism to boost investment in the sector.

On an average, the companies are required to invest around $2.5m per MW for the construction of a renewable energy project in the country.

Talking about the difficulties bugging the country’s renewable energy sector, Cerezo added, ""To address these challenges, we need to intensify information drive for renewable energy promotion and we need cooperation and assistance of the academe and our affiliated renewable energy centers all over the country.

"We have to continue enhancing our coordination with other government entities as well."