Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) / STOCK
MANILA -The Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) last week announced that it had set the preliminary price caps for the Department of Energy’s (DOE) second Green Energy Auction Program (GEA-2) at a range of P4.24 to P5.98 per kilowatt-hour (kWh), depending on the renewable energy resource.
These prices are slightly lower than last year’s by a few centavos and are still up for comments until Friday, May 5, according to the ERC.
In a statement, the ERC said the proposed Green Energy Auction Reserve (GEAR) price for rooftop solar was at P4.7156 per kWh; ground-mounted solar, P4.2395 per kWh; floating solar, P4.7565 per kWh; wind, P5.9823 per kWh, and biomass, P5.1475 per kWh.
“Preliminary GEAR price for waste-to-energy, on the other hand, will be posted at a later time prior to the commencement of the public consultations,” the regulator said.
The ERC sets prices for the government’s GEA program to ensure the lowest price for renewable energy sources.
Final prices will be released after the public consultations, which will be held on May 11 in Luzon, May 15 in Visayas and May 16 in Mindanao.
Last year, the ERC set final GEAR prices at P3.6779 per kWh for solar, P6.0584 per kWh for wind, P5.0797 per kWh for biomass and P5.4913 per kWh for run-of-river hydro.
In March, the DOE said it would be auctioning off 11,600 megawatts (MW) of renewable energy capacities in the next three years to help increase the country’s supply of clean energy. These would be enough to power at least 4.6 million homes a year.
The bulk of the total capacity, or 7,620 MW, would be sourced from solar power, 3,720 MW from onshore wind, 230 MW from biomass and 30 MW from waste-to-energy.
The DOE will bid out 7,715 MW in Luzon, 2,705 MW in Visayas and 1,190 MW in Mindanao. INQ
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