Mapping the current reality of the energy grid

The renewable energy (RE) transition is an endeavor in which the Philippines as a nation has significant stakes in seeing it succeed. The country is after all a sovereignty that is surrounded completely by water and is no stranger to monsoons and flooding. It is not an understatement to say that the risks posed by continuing to live in a world powered by fossil fuel are existential. 

The government has long recognized these risks, and the Department of Energy (DoE) has institutionalized clear long-term benchmarks to facilitate the energy transition via the Philippine Energy Plan (PEP). The national framework targets a minimum of 35% RE generation share by 2030, scaling up aggressively to a 50% share by 2040 and up to 2050 beyond. 

Yet, despite such ambitious targets, the country is still known as the having one of the most coal-dependent grids in Southeast Asia. Despite an official moratorium on new coal-fired power plants implemented by the DoE, empirical energy statistics show that over the past two decades, coal’s share of Philippine electricity generation has increased dramatically, reaching roughly 60%–62% of total generation by 2023. Meanwhile, RE’s share of electricity generation declined from about 33% in 2003 to around 21%-25% in recent years. 

In its 2025 coal analysis and forecast report, the International Energy Agency is projecting 15% rise in the Philippines’ coal demand by 2030, up to 54 million tons, keeping the country’s regional consumption among the highest in the region alongside Indonesia and Vietnam. 

Traditional RE sources like geothermal and large-scale hydropower continue to carry the bulk of the green share, meaning that newly deployed technologies like solar and wind are failing to grow fast enough to match the pace of country-wide demand. 

To disrupt this stagnation, the government and private sector are leaning heavily on mechanisms established under Republic Act No. 9513 or The Renewable Energy Act of 2008, supplemented by efforts to integrate the private sector into the fold. 

The primary structural drivers are the Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS)—which mandate electricity distributors to source a specific percentage of their power from RE—alongside Net Metering, the Green Energy Option Program (GEOP), and the Green Energy Auction Program (GEAP). 

Net Metering allows residential and commercial consumers who install their own small-scale RE systems (most commonly rooftop solar installations up to 100 kilowatts) to connect directly to the local distribution grid. Meanwhile, GEOP grants eligible electricity end-users the legal right to bypass their local utility and negotiate directly with licensed Renewable Energy Suppliers to ensure 100% of their facility’s power comes from clean sources. 

Historically, regular commercial facilities and private individuals had no choice but to buy whatever power mix their local distribution utility supplied. These policies allowed energy procurement to be essentially democratized. 

Moreover, the GEAP is a government-led marketplace to fast-track utility-scale RE projects. Rather than letting developers build plants blindly, the DoE acts as a central auctioneer. The government announces a massive block of needed capacity (e.g., gigawatts of ground-mounted solar, onshore wind, or offshore wind) and invites private developers to bid the lowest price per kilowatt-hour they are willing to accept to build those projects. Winning bidders are awarded a 20-year Green Energy Tariff (GET) via long-term power purchase contracts, overseen by the Energy Regulatory Commission. 

The RE agenda demands nothing less than a whole-of-nation effort. For an archipelago uniquely vulnerable to a warming world, transitioning to renewables and breaking free of the overdependence on coal will require the private sector to look beyond the short-term and actively invest in an entirely new energy landscape. Such policies aligned with the PEP roadmap are a start. There is still a long road ahead. — Bjorn Biel M. Beltran