DOE awaits Palace okay to award hydrogen exploration contracts

Energy Secretary Raphael Lotilla —Contributed photo

The Department of Energy (DOE) is set to award service contracts for the exploration of hydrogen sources in the Philippines once President Marcos gives his go-signal.

Energy Secretary Raphael Lotilla said late last week that while the department has already picked names, the service contracts would still need the Office of the President’s approval.

“I don’t want, again, to preempt the Office of the President from acting on it. And so we will make the announcements when the President has approved the same,” he told reporters on the sidelines of the Pilipinas Conference 2024 in Makati City.

Expertise

The department previously said that groups vying for these hydrogen exploration activities must have expertise in this field while having the financial muscle to fund such ventures.

Hydrogen can be produced from a variety of sources, but the challenge for countries that have hyped the technology in recent years was to turn this into gas, which they said was more climate-friendly since it does not emit carbon dioxide. The Marcos administration has an ambitious target to increase renewables’ share in the power generation mix to 35 percent by 2030 from the current 22 percent.

The DOE said it was also in search of “naturally occurring” hydrogen.

In August, the DOE said it received five applications for native hydrogen exploration in Central Luzon under its 2024 Philippine Energy Bid Round.

Native probe

Earlier this year, the DOE offered two predetermined areas for native hydrogen exploration in the northern portion of the Zambales Ophiolite Complex and the western portion of Central Luzon. The department said at that time that its hydrogen plans had enticed “numerous” firms from Australia, Europe and North America.

“These hydrogen contracts are in fact novel in today’s world because apparently, it’s only the Philippines that bid an area purposely for hydrogen exploration,” Energy Undersecretary Alessandro Sales said in June.

Signed in January this year, the DOE issued Department Circular No. 2024-01-0001 to incentivize entities that will help the government secure its power supply by investing in hydrogen energy for power generation.