Phl among world’s biggest coal junkie

The Philippines is now among the biggest user of coal in the world to generate electricity.

It topped the region in the use of the fuel, branded as dirty energy source, surpassing Indonesia and China, while it broke into the world’s top 10 economies most dependent on coal-fired power, data from energy think tank Ember showed.

The country ranked 7th on the list after Kosovo, Mongolia, South Africa, India and Kazakhstan.

The ranking underlines the challenges it faces to achieve its green energy goals, according to experts.

Share of coal in the generation mix overtook that of Poland, China and Indonesia in 2023.

The country saw a sharp 2.9 percentage point annual coal share increase, from 59.1 percent in 2022 to 61.9 percent in 2023.

The rest of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) members saw an increase of its coal reliance of 2 percentage points from 31 percent in 2022 to 33 percent in 2023.

However, this was a rebound following two consecutive annual falls and the coal share of generation was still 3.1 percentage points below 2020 levels.

Globally, the share of coal in electricity generation rose for the 15th straight year in 2023, the data showed, despite a target to cut dependence on the fuel to less than half of total power output by 2030.

Kosovo had the highest coal dependence in 2023 with 88.21 percent of its power coming from the polluting fuel.

“Both Indonesia and the Philippines lag behind other countries in the ASEAN region in their wind and solar deployment,” Ember said in a statement on Monday. Indonesia and the Philippines have struggled to boost renewable capacity due to the costs involved.

Coal producers

Indonesia became the world’s fifth largest generator of coal-fired power, with output growing at an average pace of 7.1 percent over 8 years to overtake South Korea for the first time.

“This ascent included surpassing Australia in 2018, Germany in 2019, Russia in 2020 and South Africa in 2022,” Ember said.

Philippines, based on the data, became the most coal-reliant country in Southeast Asia. Indonesia and the Philippines have yet to tap into their wind and solar potential, which would allow them to reduce their coal dependency.

Indonesia and the Philippines have seen limited growth in their renewable electricity generation, as their wind and solar potential remains almost entirely untapped, according to Ember’s report.

In the Philippines, wind and solar increased from less than 1 TWh in 2015 to 3.7 TWh in 2023. With limited growth in other renewables, this represented 61 percent of the total increase in renewables over the same period.

Both Indonesia and the Philippines lag other countries in the ASEAN region in their wind and solar deployment. In the rest of the region, wind and solar increased by 46-terawatt hour (TWh), from 3 TWh in 2015 to 50 TWh in 2023. This was primarily driven by growth in Vietnam (+35 TWh).

The Philippines is ahead of Indonesia in development of renewable energy but is still behind the regional average of 4.4 percent or the leader, Vietnam, with 13 percent.