ERC defers issuance of bid price for run-of-river hydro

The release of the bid price for run-of-river hydropower, a renewable energy technology to which related concessions will be up for auction in 2025, has been “deferred for further consideration,”according to the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC).

This was based on a document dated Dec. 17, 2024 and posted on the ERC’s website, related to the third round of the government’s Green Energy Auction Program.

The regulator said a decision was put off “given the pending issues that need to be resolved.”

Sought for more details, ERC chair and chief executive officer Monalisa Dimalanta said the Commission was “clarifying a policy matter with the DOE (Department of Energy).”

Dimalanta said such a matter was related to the supposed “parallel implementation” of the Feed-In-Tariff (FIT) and Green Energy Auction Program (GEAP) for run-of-river hydro.

FIT is another initiative meant to provide fixed rates to emerging clean power sources, including hydro. GEAP, meanwhile, is designed to accelerate the transition to renewable energy.

Run-of-river refers (ROR) to hydropower generation facilities that use the natural flow of water from a river through a channel to spin a turbine.

ROR systems are usually smaller than hydropower plants that use a dam to store water in a reservoir, from which the water is released through a turbine.

“We noted that there is still unsubscribed capacity for FIT for this technology yet there is additional capacity allocated for GEAP,” she said Friday.