With no hard net-zero emission commitments, can regulators push a shift to renewable energy?
That’s how Senator Sherwin Gatchalian, vice chair of the Senate committee on energy, described the power sector regulatory agency at an industry event in November 2022. “To call for energy democracy, that takes balls,” he said.
The Climate Justice Alliance, a global coalition of 84 communities and organizations that call for a “just transition,” defines energy democracy as a shift from the corporate, centralized fossil fuel economy to one that is “governed by communities, is designed on the principle of no harm to the environment, supports local economies, and contributes to the health and well-being for all peoples.”
The challenge then is to expand the country’s energy supply pool by tapping resources it already has: renewable energy. “The longer-term solution [for our energy insecurity] is to move away from overdependence on imported sources and to go for indigenous sources. If we can have a hybrid [power system], more renewables…the cost [of energy] can be more affordable and more accessible to our people,” Lotilla said in August.
Stakeholders interviewed by PCIJ were optimistic renewable energy policies and targets would gain ground under the Marcos Jr. administration. In denying the motion, the ERC said the fixed price nature of the PSAs was intended to act as “natural barrier” to protect consumers from external threats such as market volatilities.
“I think what we saw was the ERC preventing a very slippery slope for fossil-fuel developers to continue to renegotiate contractually obligated prices. And so I think in the grand scheme of things, the ERC made the right choice,” he said. “The problem [with our energy supply] is not just the [lack or availability of] power plants, it’s the procurement [process] of the distribution utilities and also the connections to the grid. So what we need is a real systems approach,” said Albert Dalusung III, energy consultant of the Institute for Climate and Sustainable Cities. New policies introduced
Weeks earlier, the agency increased the compliance requirement of distribution utilities in the renewable portfolio standards program. Previously, the RPS program mandated on-grid power suppliers to increase the share of renewable energy sources in their power mix by 1% on an annual basis from 2020 to 2030. The DOE has since increased this requirement to 2.52%.
Capongcol of the REMB said new policies signaled that the country was “open for business” for renewable energy development. Aside from commercial power generators, distribution utilities may soon tap supply from individual customers. In November, ERC slapped a P5.1-million fine against the grid company for failing to follow the government procedure in procuring ancillary services, energy reserves that help NGCP maintain the reliability of the grid. As the transmission operator, it is tasked to procure energy that it can tap in case the capacities of power generators unexpectedly drop.
“Even if we continue to impose penalties upon penalties, it does not make our system any better. It doesn’t make our grid more reliable. What we want is for them to do the projects that they need to do, at the time that they have committed to do them so that we can have a more reliable grid,” she said. Another roadblock is the tedious licensing process, including those for incentive schemes for consumers.
The Green Energy Option Program , which allows smaller industrial consumers to source all their electricity supply directly from renewable sources if they have a peak demand of 100 kW or greater in the past 12 months, only has “100+” customers, said Capongcol. “It takes three to six months,” she said. “We need to make it shorter.”
“The next step now for wider adoption of renewable energy is maybe another policy that raises the [GHG emissions reduction] ambition further, specifically the [renewable energy share] target,” Arances of CEED said.
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