Philippines to streamline offshore wind and floating solar guidelines

Regulation & Policy

August 3, 2023, by Amir Garanovic

Philippine Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) has started working with the country’s Department of Energy (DOE) on updating the offshore wind and floating solar guidelines so they would become components of next year’s National Expenditure Program (NEP).

Maria Antonia Yulo-Loyzaga, environment secretary at DENR (Courtesy of Philippine government)

According to the environment secretary Maria Antonia Yulo-Loyzaga, DENR is working ‘very closely’ with the DOE to update the guidelines for offshore wind and floating solar and that those investments would be components of the next year’s NEP.

“I think what’s also very important is to take note of our energy roadmap because, for us, at this point, we would like to see the transitions, of course, that we all need to actually support in terms of the movement towards renewable energy sources,” said Yulo-Loyzaga.

The DENR secretary made the remarks when asked by reporters what climate-related projects will be funded by the P500 billion-climate change expenditures as proposed under the 2024 NEP.

Yulo-Loyzaga expressed elation on the implementation of convergence budgeting, through climate tagging, which involves the work of different departments and their contributions to either climate change adaptation or mitigation.

The ‘Program Convergence Budgeting’ is an approach that aims to focus government resources on key programs and projects, which shall be coordinated in a holistic approach across departments/agencies working towards the same goals.

In terms of the DENR’s own climate change agenda, Yulo-Loyzaga said that the agency now represents the president in the Climate Change Commission (CCC), and will be presenting soon the National Adaptation Plan during the 2024 budget deliberations.

“The National Adaptation Plan has really evolved over the number of years. It never has been finalized but we are happy to say that this is now in the process of being completed. It will mention the different ways by which the investments in the NEP actually will realize positive values for us in terms of adaptation to climate change,” Yulo-Loyzaga concluded.