Energy department preparing to award first green energy supplier permit

A RENEWABLE ENERGY contracting program of the Department of Energy (DoE) will soon have its first eligible supplier.

The department is set to award in the coming days the first operating permit under the green energy option program (GEOP), one among the government mechanisms to bring clean power access to more electricity end-users.

“I think in the next few days we’ll be awarding the first GEOP operating permit of a particular RE (renewable energy) supplier,” Mylene C. Capongcol, director of the DoE’s Renewable Energy Management Bureau, said in a webinar over the weekend.

The program, which was launched in 2018, is a voluntary policy mechanism that allows consumers with above 100 kilowatts (kW) of usage to source their supply from renewable energy suppliers.

The DoE released in May its guidelines for suppliers wanting to join the program.

“Right now, we are working towards the market rules on the registration and switching for the GEOP,” Mr. Capongcol said.

The Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) said it is still finalizing the program’s regulatory framework, which will be based on its rules for the Retail Competition and Open Access (RCOA) program.

“We are using those RCOA rules to finalize the GEOP regulatory framework,” Sharon O. Montaner, a director of the ERC’s Market Operations Service, said in the same event.

“We are, in fact, targeting to finalize all the necessary rules within this year so by 2021 we can implement the GEOP,” she added.

Along with the net metering and green energy auction programs, GEOP is authorized by Republic Act No. 9513, or the Renewable Energy Act.

The government is looking to raise the share of renewable power in the generation mix to 35% over the next decade from the current 29%. — Adam J. Ang