A LAWMAKER called on the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) to finalize Green Energy Auction Reserve (GEAR) prices so the third round of Green Energy Auction (GEA3) can proceed this year.
“That is one of the priorities… the goal is to make the shift to renewables and this is directly related to that…there are things that have to be done in the side of ERC…,” Senate committee on energy chair Pia Cayetano, said in a hearing of the Department of Energy (DOE)’s 2025 budget last week.
GEAR prices, which will determine the maximum price offers for the auction, have yet to be released by ERC.
Cayetano said investors are waiting for the third leg of the GEA which facilitates investments in RE.
In the same hearing, ERC committed to accelerate its regulatory processes.
Jesse Hermogenes Andres, ERC officer-in-charge chair, said despite the agency’s existing constraints in its structure and manpower, the regulatory body remains on track in its tasks.
“We will conduct a comprehensive process audit within the ERC to make sure we are able to deliver in a timely manner the services that are expected of us. This will be done in the very near future because the timeliness of the performance of this mandate is of national importance. … we need to act more expeditiously on the matters before the ERC,” Andres said.
In the last two years, the DOE has conducted two rounds of GEA which generated a total of 5,306 megawatts (MW) of RE commitments for delivery in 2024 to 2026.
GEA3 covers non-feed-in-tariff (FIT) eligible renewable energy technologies especially for 380 MW of geothermal, 699 MW of impounding hydro and 3,120 MW of pumped-storage hydro.
The program will also cover 200 MW run-of-river hydro, which is a FIT-eligible RE technology.
The target start of deliveries for impounding hydro and pumped storage hydro is 2028 to 2030 and 2024 to 2030 for geothermal while run-of-river hydro projects under GEA3 must start operating in 2026 to 2028.
