(Taguig City) In pursuit of its mandate of providing a comprehensive energy plan, the Department of Energy (DOE) strongly supports the increased use of renewable energy (RE) in the country under a level playing field and transparent implementation of incentives, such as the Feed-In-Tariff (FIT) Program, which are key indicators for this.

 Under the FIT System, qualified developers of emerging RE sources are offered on a fixed rate per kilowatt-hour (kWh) of their exported electricity to the distribution or transmission network.  This scheme excludes the energy utilized from RE plants eligible for own use.

 Energy Secretary Zenaida Y. Monsada said that “the government prioritizes energy security, and RE is one of the major contributors to increase the power supply especially that we are also moving towards clean energy technology.”

 The DOE highlights that FIT subscriptions for RE resources has significantly increased to 806.82 MW from 646.65 MW installations since the start of 2016.  The following are the FIT subscriptions to date: biomass has 11 power plants with a total capacity of 94.25 MW; hydro has four (4) accounting for 26.60 MW; wind has six (6) accounting for 393.90 MW.

 Meanwhile, as of 15 March 2016, the DOE has issued Certificate of Endorsement for FIT Eligibility (COE-FIT) to eleven (11) solar power plants accounting for 292.07 megawatts (MW) to the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC).  More solar power projects may be issued COE-FIT at the completion of the on-going validation and assessment of the submissions received by the DOE in relation to the 15 March 2016 deadline for the expanded FIT for solar.

 It has to be recalled that the first tranche of the solar for FIT was at 108.90 MW at P9.68/kWh, while the second tranche was the remainder for the 500 MW installation target at P8.69/kWh.

 FIT is one of the policy mechanisms eyed by the DOE as it aims to maintain the share of RE to at least 30% in the country’s power mix.