Foreign investors have once again asked the national government to lift its foreign ownership limit in renewable energy projects in order to generate more investments in the sector.
In a report by the Philippine Star, Energy secretary Raphael Lotilla said that there remains strong interest from foreign investors to engage in RE projects in the Philippines provided that the government would increase the equity for foreigners.
Lotilla added that investors with experience in offshore wind projects in Denmark and Norway had expressed strong interest in the Philippines.
DOJ said that the Implementing Rules and Regulations (IRR) of Republic Act No. 9513 or the Renewable Energy Act of 2008 must be amended to conform with the released opinion.
DOE stressed the need for available adequate transmission lines to further entice foreign investors to ensure that produced renewable energy is transmitted to areas where it is needed.
On Thursday last week, DOE declared that all qualified and registered renewable energy-generating plants will be considered as “preferential dispatch” in the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM).
“This will minimize the country’s exposure to price fluctuations in the global market, making the supply and delivery of electric power more stable and secured from international geopolitical conflicts,” Lotilla said.
The move to widen the coverage of preferential dispatch will aid in accelerating the development and utilization of indigenous RE resources and reduce the dependence on imported conventional energy sources.
Under the newly released Department Circular (DC) 2022-10-0031, the policy broadened for “priority dispatch” and “must dispatch” not only to projects qualified under the feed-in-tariff (FIT) incentive scheme of the government.
“This will minimize the country’s exposure to price fluctuations in the global market, making the supply and delivery of electric power more stable and secured from international geopolitical conflicts,” DOE said in a statement.