Philippines’ green energy auction heavily oversubscribed with nearly 7 GW of pumped hydro bids  

The Philippine Department of Energy (DOE) said on Tuesday that its GEA-3 auction round, focusing on technologies not eligible for feed-in tariff (FIT) such as pumped hydro storage, impounding hydropower, and geothermal, demonstrated an overwhelming response from industry stakeholders.

A total of 14 projects, with delivery period from 2025 to 2035, were submitted in the auction with a cumulative capacity of 7.5 GW, exceeding the installation target of 4,650 MW.

Offers for pumped hydro storage projects reached 6,950 MW, surpassing the 4,250 MW target installation.

Lot 1 procured 2 GW of pumped hydro storage, which should be delivered on the country’s largest and most populous island, Luzon, in the period between 2028-2030. The offered capacity stood at 2.5 GW.

Lot 2 was seeking to add 2 GW also in Luzon in 2031-2032 and was heavily oversubscribed with 4.2 GW of offered projects. The target of 250 MW was successfully procured in Lot 3 and shall be delivered in the Visayas region in 2031-2035.

The Philippines expanded the GEA-3 procurement exercise in December 2024 by 250 MW, notiting that the revised installation target will help ensure that the country’s expected peak demand of 42.8 GW in 2040 is met.

Currently, the country’s only operating pumped hydro project is the government-owned Kalayaan 1 and 2 in Laguna with a total capacity of 300 MW.

The GEA-3 procurement specifies that proposed pumped hydro storage projects must utilize variable speed technology, noting that all other bids shall be deemed “not technically compliant.”

Variable speed technology in pumped hydro storage projects refers to the use of adjustable-speed pump-turbine units instead of traditional fixed-speed units. This technology allows the speed of the pump-turbine to be varied through a frequency converter, enhancing the operational flexibility and efficiency of pumped storage.

GEA-3 also attracted bids for impounding hydropower totaling 550 MW and surpassing the target of 300 MW. The auction also had a 100 MW procurement target for geothermal technology but only 30.89 MW of capacity was offered.

All awarded projects under the GEA-3 will be entitled to 20-year supply contracts starting from the commercial operation date.

In its next step, the DOE will announce the winning bids once the Energy Regulatory Commission has completed the review of the price offers.

“The Certificate of Award will be released to the Winning Bidder upon complete submission of the post-auction documents under Section 9 of the Terms of Reference and affirmed in order by the GEA-Bids Evaluation and Awards Committee,” it added.

Previously, the DOE had conducted two auctions which generated a total of 5,306 MW of renewables capacities committed to join the grid in 2024-2026.

In May 2024, the DOE released figures projecting that the Philippines was on track to install nearly 2 GW of additional solar capacity for the year, alongside 590 MW of battery energy storage. At the time the figures were released, 32.42 MW of the 590 MW was in operation.