TAGUIG CITY - During the last leg of the Pre-State of the Nation Address (SoNA) Forum, Department of Energy (DOE) Secretary Alfonso G. Cusi reported that to further help the country’s climate change mitigation, the DOE has issued a moratorium on the new construction of coal power plants.

“But more than that, the position of DOE has been on climate justice. We have been asking the Climate Change Commission, considering that the country is a victim, rather than the initiator of all these calamities happening to us, such as typhoons that are hitting us. But besides that, we are doing our share to contribute to reducing carbon emission by increasing our share of renewable sources of energy,” Secretary Cusi said.

Under Secretary Cusi’s leadership, the DOE has set the runway for a more aggressive energy transition towards the Clean Energy Scenario.

The DOE completed of the mechanisms under the Renewable Energy Act of 2008, which are aimed at facilitating greater private sector investments in renewables — including the participation of electricity consumers in renewable energy (RE) development, enabling them to produce their own electricity requirements, or to choose RE as their chosen supply. RE development measures include the Renewable Portfolio Standards policy, Green Energy Option Program policy, and Enhanced Net-Metering System, among others, which are geared towards achieving a 35 percent RE share by year 2030.

“What we are doing is that aside from solar, wind and tidal, we are expanding our hydro and geothermal. In fact, geothermal used to be limited only to the Filipinos, we have opened it 100 percent, through Financial and Technical Assistance projects, to the foreigners so that we can expand and we can expedite the development of our energy sources,” Secretary Cusi said.

Alongside geothermal, the DOE is introducing Waste-to-Energy (WTE) development as it is not only for power generation but to address solid waste management.  The DOE is currently developing a policy providing WTE the needed support.

In reaching these ambitious targets, the DOE Secretary has also been proactive in providing for more order in the energy sector. 

It can be recalled that in 2018, during the pending of the Competitive Selection Process (CSP) before the Supreme Court, Secretary Cusi issued the 2018 CSP policy in order to guide the power industry players on how to procure the power “in the least cost manner”.

The Supreme Court later issued its decisions practically telling the power industry players to follow the 2018 Cusi Policy. To augment the 2018 policy addressing the additional policy required, the following were also issued, including the 2019 policy for 100 percent Ancillary Services Contracting; 2020 policy for the transparent Grid Operations and Maintenance Program to address the synchronized scheduling of preventive maintenance of the power plants and the transmission network. 

Landmark pieces of legislation were likewise signed into law by President Duterte, namely the Energy Virtual One-Stop Shop (EVOSS) Law to address the timely processing of energy applications and the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Act, upon the presentations made by the DoE. From these, the DOE made representations before the Cabinet on a whole of nation strategy in their implementation which includes the tapping of foreign funding assistance for the renewable and energy efficiency programs. 

“The DOE will not hesitate to push for all these programs and will do everything, including the provision of relevant information to enforcement agencies, to ensure compliance from all the mandated stakeholders,” the Energy Chief stated, considering that under Section 46 of the Electric Power Industry Reform Act (EPIRA), the DOE can only recommend the revocation/cancellation of the Franchise to Congress. 

In 2015, the Philippine government has submitted an intended nationally determined contribution or initial commitment is 70 percent greenhouse gas emission reduction to the Paris Convention. However, the target was raised to 75 percent when President Duterte took charge in 2016.

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