The second Green Energy Auction: 3,440 MW awarded

The second Green Energy Auction was held on 3 July 2023. The department offered 11,600 MW across three delivery years, 2024 to 2026, and awarded about 3,440 MW, almost all of it ground-mounted solar and onshore wind. It was nearly twice the size of the first round, and still less than a third of what was on offer.

Compiled in September 2026 from the releases of the time, with the revisions the agencies have published since. Nothing here is a forecast.

Why so much was left

The reserve prices, set by the regulator before the round, were below what many bidders could build for after a year in which the peso had lost a seventh of its value and module and turbine prices had risen. Bidders offered what they could deliver at the price; the rest of the lot went unfilled. The lesson for the third round was to set the price after the bids rather than before.

What the round procured

Solar and onshore wind for delivery in each of 2024, 2025 and 2026, concentrated in Luzon.

A small amount of run-of-river hydro.

Very little biomass: the lot attracted few offers at the reserve price.

What it means for the grid

Almost 5,400 MW of variable renewable capacity was now contracted across the two rounds, all of it due within three years, on a grid whose peak was about 13,000 MW in Luzon. That is a lot of midday energy and no firm capacity. The third round, designed the following year, was built around storage and dispatchable hydro for that reason.

What it means for a plant

The auctions were never going to be the route for a site's own residue-fired plant: the lots are too large and the delivery terms too rigid. What they set is the public price of renewable electricity, which is the benchmark a factory's own generation is measured against. After this round, that benchmark was low at midday and unchanged at night, which is when a boiler still needs to run.

We work with developers and technology providers on the Philippine execution side: permits, grid, fuel and construction. Tell us about the project. The figures behind each quarter are in the quarterly market brief.