268 renewable energy contracts given by DoE

Energy Secretary Jose Rene D. Almendras made an assurance that the government was continuously awarding renewable energy service contracts to deserving project proponents, with total approvals already reaching 268 as of January 9 this year.

“We have been coming out with renewable energy contracts. We’re pushing for it. Except that, we chose not to make public the list of the proponents for now as they still need to go through various clearances from the local government units and they need to secure other permits like the Environmental Compliance Certificate,” Almendras said in an interview.

“Let’s allow them to work first because if we announce those we have awarded contracts, they might become the target of those wanting to make money off them,” he added.

Based on documents from the Department of Energy (DoE), the 268 existing contracts for renewable energy projects have the potential capacity to generate 4,763 megawatts. Hydropower projects comprised the bulk of the approvals at 133 contracts, followed by wind projects with 52 contracts.

As of the first half of 2011, there were 236 renewable energy service contracts that have been signed since the Department of Energy started awarding these in 2009.

However, it should be recalled that since last year, the DoE has been canceling service contracts in an effort to weed out those that were not able to comply with their work commitments.

According to Almendras, the cancellation of non-performing was still going on.

“There are a lot of service contracts that are not moving. We are sending letters to those that are not complying with their work commitments—they need to explain to us. If the excuse is acceptable, we will agree on a new scheduled. If not, the contract will be revoked,” Almendras warned.

Meanwhile, data from the DoE further showed that the number of pending applications for RE contracts has been halved to 222 from the previous year’s count of 406 applications.

The DoE, Almendras earlier said, would push through with the development of local RE sources as this would help a country that was heavily reliant on imported energy sources.

Based on the government’s National Renewable Energy Plan, the DoE targets to increase the RE-based power capacity of the country to as much as 15,236 megawatts by 2030. Currently, the country’s RE-level capacity stood at 5,369 MW.