The Department of Energy released the revised Green Energy Auction Program guidelines that will pave the way for the bidding of an initial 2,000 megawatts of renewable energy supply.
“The GEAP is a new market development support program introduced by the DOE to promote renewable energy as one of the country’s primary sources of energy through the transparent and competitive selection of RE facilities. This supports the government’s goal of attaining energy security through the entry of new capacities in the grid,” Energy Secretary Alfonso Cusi said over the weekend.
“The GEAP likewise assists the mandated participants of the Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS) in complying with their prescribed minimum RPS requirements,” Cusi said.
Department circular no. 2021-11-0036 provides for the revised guidelines for the GEAP, which refers to the competitive process of procuring renewable energy supply.
It will be conducted for new and existing RE capacities duly registered with the DOE, provided the facilities have no purchase power agreement with distribution utilities or other offtakes at the time of the agreed delivery date.
The DOE said the GEAP is one of the best ways to accelerate the development of renewable energy, promotes its applications and encourage private sector participation and investment in RE.
All qualified bidders will place their bid capacity and price offer through the electronic bidding platform operated by the DOE.
The GEA committee will rank the offers from the lowest to the highest bid price. The DOE, through the committee, will declare the wining bidders.
The updated guidelines adopt certain mechanisms under the feed-in-tariff, such as central dispatch, to be sold tthrough the Wholesale Electricity Spot Marketas priority dispatch.
GEAP also introduces an “opt-in mechanism,” which would allow any DU to procure portions of the capacity auctioned to allow the DUs to procure supply in a competitive environment and, at the same time, comply with its minimum renewable portfolio standard requirements.
The DOE said the auction will serve as compliance with the competitive selection process for DUs.
“The implementation of GEAP is seen to encourage greater private sector participation in the generation sector through RE. With GEAP, the country’s RE program will be met particularly in targeting attainment of 35-percent RE share in the generation mix by 2030,” Cusi said.
The DOE is looking at a 50-percent share of RE in the power generation mix by 2040 from 35 percent in 2030 as projected under the proposed National Renewable Energy Program 2020-2040.