ERC must hustle

While the private sector is aggressively pushing for renewable energy, the regulator, it seems, is not keeping up with the pace. This as Energy Secretary Raphael Lotilla said the third round of the Green Energy Auction Program is being stalled by the lack of a pricing schedule that is the domain of the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC). It is the mandate of the ERC to determine Green Energy Auction Reserve (GEAR) prices, or the maximum price offers.

“One of the items required there would be the approved pricing methodologies with ERC. We’re coordinating that,” Lotilla said. The Senate has asked the ERC to finalize the required ceiling prices for the auction to happen before the end of this year.

“That is one of the priorities I think we need to do because in everything, the goal is to make the shift to renewables and this is directly related to that. I hope we can get that done. I understand there are things that have to be done on the side of ERC as well,” Senator Pia Cayetano said at the Senate hearing on the Department of Energy’s 2025 budget.

Lotilla and ERC officer-in-charge and chief executive officer Jesse Hermogenes Andres were present at the hearing. In the last two years, the DoE has conducted two rounds of auctions that generated a total of 5,306 megawatts (MW) of renewable energy commitments for delivery in 2024 to 2026. However, the DoE received a commitment for only 3,580.76 MW out of the 11,600 MW offered under GEAR2.

The DoE earlier cited supply limitations, low incentives, delays in the conduct of grid impact studies, and the cost of financial guarantees as some of the reasons for low investor turnout during GEA-2. GEA-3 covers non-feed-in tariff (Non-FIT) eligible renewable energy technologies like geothermal, impounding hydro, and pumped-storage hydro under DoE Circular DC2023-10-0029. The estimated capacities for non-FIT eligible RE technologies are 699 MW from impounding hydro, 3,120 MW from pumped storage hydro, and 380 MW from geothermal. GEA-3 will also cover run-of-river hydro, which is a FIT-eligible RE technology.

“Our target for the Green Energy Auction 3 is to finish it before the end of the year such that the pumped storage hydro, [more than] 3,000 megawatts (MW), will be able to come in five years from now,” Energy Undersecretary Rowena Guevara told senators.

Marshal ‘Manipis’

Even in retirement, some officials are creating opportunities for financial gains. A retiring Bureau of Fire Protection official who came from the Philippine National Police Academy executed a shuffle of his subordinates before retiring next month. Junior officers were placed strategically to build a patronage network where he could ask for payback later.

His appointees in a big city in Metro Manila were just too happy to oblige amid promises of great wealth. One of the appointees’ first moves was to require fire inspectors to fork out P5,000 each time he affixed his signature to a document. The new BFP marshal is being ridiculed behind his back as Mr. “Manipis,” which is the term he uses whenever the amount to induce his signature is below his expectation.