THE Independent Electricity Operator of the Philippines (IEMOP) said it hopes to launch full commercial operations by December for the renewable energy (RE) market serving on-grid participants.
“We are preparing for the renewable energy market full commercial operations, targeted for December,” Arjon B. Valencia, manager for corporate planning and communication at IEMOP, told reporters at a briefing recently.
The RE market is the venue for trading RE certificates (RECs) equivalent to an amount of power generated from RE resources, and is intended as a facility for mandated participants to comply with their Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS) obligations.
RPS requires distribution utilities (DUs), electric cooperatives (ECs) and retail electricity suppliers to source a certain portion of their energy supply from eligible RE resources.
RECs, which are issued to mandated participants, is equivalent to a one-megawatt-hour of RE generation at a price capped at P241 each. Renewables should account for at least 11% of the participants’ energy sales.
The RE market launched interim commercial operations in 2022 with the Philippine Electricity Market Corp. (PEMC) as the RE registrar.
“We’re expecting to have the functions transferred to IEMOP together with the declaration of commercial operations,” Mr. Valencia said.
The Department of Energy (DoE) will issue a department circular declaring the full commercial operations of the RE market, he said.
“When it comes to the scale of this market, I think the sales will focus more on the off-takers, the ECs, DUs to source or to buy from the market as they are the mandated participants,” Mr. Valencia said.
“As to our target of 35% by 2030, this market will facilitate that,” he added, referring to the goal of increasing RE share in the power generation mix, which is currently at 22%. — Sheldeen Joy Talavera