The European Union will be giving a total of P9 billion in funds to the Philippines for renewable energy development, energy efficiency projects, and household electrification.
The EU and the Department of Energy (DOE) launched Access to Sustainable Energy Programme (ASEP) yesterday to attain these goals, with the financing agreement expected to run for three to four years.
“We see that the Philippines and the EU are sharing many objectives looking forward on issues such as climate change, sustainable energy, pro-poor agenda trying to lift people out of poverty,” EU Ambassador to the Philippines Franz Jessen said.
A P6-billion cooperation budget was added for the energy partnership between the EU and the country, on top of the P3 billion grant under ASEP last year.
The EU and the DOE are working to identify projects that will be funded under ASEP, such as clean energy and low carbon projects, ASEP consultant Christoph Menke said in the same press briefing.
“More than technology, we need business models and the right policies administration. This is exactly where the project can work with the government and a very lot of people committed in different agencies to work on,” he said.
ASEP is geared towards giving clean energy solutions to 100, 000 households or 500, 000 people; add 20 megawatts more of additional renewable energy projects; and improve energy efficiency and generate savings of greenhouse gas emissions.
The DOE is considering channeling the funds into paying for the feed-in-tariff (FIT) instead of passing the subsidy charges to consumers.
“What the Department of Energy is looking at for the future is how to be more flexible and how to gather more information at the right time. We are all looking at the smart grid technology and as I have emphasized, we are looking at how to further develop wires and have convergence on ICT,” DOE Undersecretary Felix William Fuentebella said.