The Institute for Climate and Sustainable Cities (ICSC) said that the Philippines needs to go for a more “distributed” power generation, which involves constructing more solar power plants while swaying away from coal-fired power plants.
In a report by BusinessWorld, ICSC senior policy advisor Pedro Maniego said that the country’s dependence on coal makes it vulnerable to volatile international energy prices, adding that the Philippines lacks sufficient power to support the developing economy and growing population.
Maniego said that solar power is the best technology for distributed generation given the Philippines’ archipelagic geography and minimal domestic fossil fuel sources. He added that the country has no option but “to tap technological innovation to meet its twin goals of low carbon and reliable energy.”
With that, the ICSC called for the government and the banks to provide more lending opportunities for RE investments in the country.
In a Philippine Star report, ICSC executive director Renato Redentor Constantino said that local banks and the Department of Finance “should stop the pawnshop mentality and step up to provide more lending opportunities for RE investments.”
Under the Philippine Energy Plan (PEP), the total energy investments required for the next 20 years is around $153 billion, of which $94.3 billion is for RE alone.
Local banks like BDO Unibank Inc., Rizal Commercial Banking Corporation (RCBC), and Security Bank have all pledged to cease funding of coal-fired power plant projects.
Last week, the Board of Investments approved $6 billion worth of RE projects. The Department of Energy (DOE) earlier said that it would review the country’s power outlook for 2023 amid the volatility of the gas market.
