Following Energy secretary Alfonso Cusi’s directive to conduct an audit of the energy industry, the Department of Energy (DOE) is seeking to hire a third party to speed the assessment of the power sector.
DOE spokesman Felix Fuentebella said in a briefing that the agency is “exploring all the options to speed up and make acceptable the results of the technical audit.”
“We’re trying to look into the costing and we’re also exploring the idea [hiring a] third party especially from the academe,” he said.
The previous administration set the country’s energy mix to 30-30-30-10, deriving energy from 30 percent coal, 30 percent from natural gas, 30 percent from renewables, and 10 percent from oil-based power plants.
Cusi earlier signed a special order directing the DOE to perform a technical audit in order to find out the current capacities of power plants and other distribution utilities, as he plans to revise the energy mix. After the design for the audit is finished, the agency will release a circular to formalize the assessment.
2015 data from the DOE showed that the Philippines has a dependable capacity of 16, 451 megawatts (MW) and a total installed capacity of 18, 695 MW.
Coal-fired plants supply over 30 percent of the capacity, diesel-fired plants contribute 19 percent, and 15 percent comes from natural gas power plants.
Geothermal and hydropower are the largest contributors of renewable energy (RE) in the country, with 19.3 percent and 10.3 percent, respectively. Other forms of RE contribute less than five percent combined.
