The Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) of the Philippines has approved new regulations for distributed energy resources (DERs) with a capacity not exceeding 1 MW, which will come into effect within 15 days of publication in the National Official Gazette.
The new regulations open up the possibility for owners of distributed renewable energy systems to inject surplus electricity into the grid and get paid up to 30%.
"The DER rules include guidelines, interconnection standards, certificate of conformity (COC) requirements, pricing methods, business schemes governing the sale and operation of electricity generated by DERs, and subsidy payments, among others," the ERC said.
The Philippines has only allowed net metering of renewable energy systems below 100 kW since 2008, but the plan has failed to generate significant growth. Most of the existing rooftop PV capacity in the Philippines is actually deployed through the now-expired long-term protective feed-in tariff system.
The Philippines plans to install 15 GW of clean energy by 2030, and recent statistics from the International Renewable Energy Agency show the country’s installed PV capacity at 1.08 GW by the end of 2021.