DOE chief targets 121.3 GW of power capacity by 2040

MANILA, Philippines — The country’s energy chief is pushing more ambitious targets, calling for aggressive investments to raise power capacity to 121.3 gigawatts (GW) by 2040.

In a media briefing on Tuesday, Department of Energy (DOE) Secretary Sharon Garin said the local market’s current installed capacity is 32.2 GW.

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“The results also tell us that the projects already in the pipeline will not be enough to meet our long-term requirements… Reaching that level will require substantial additional investments,” she said.

The official particularly said the need to deploy 24 GW of new ground-mounted solar, 20 GW of new gas, and nearly 10 GW of new onshore wind.

But Garin said the required capacity from these technologies could still drop if the Philippines would realize new capacities from planned offshore wind and waste-to-energy assets.

The energy executive said she has ordered the Power Bureau and Renewable Energy Management Bureau to assess the performance of power plants amid the waves of grid alerts.

“Installed capacity on paper is not enough. We need to look at actual performance — whether plants are delivering the capacity and reliability expected of them and meeting their obligations to the power system” she said. /pai