BUTUAN CITY/ November 24, 2025 – Mindanao energy stakeholders have reached consensus on the need to achieve parity between renewable and fossil fuels in the island’s energy mix by 2030.
In his message to the 3rd Mindanao Clean Energy Forum (MCEF) read by Deputy Executive Director Romeo Montenegro, Secretary Leo Tereso Magno of the Mindanao Development Authority (MINDA) said, “Mindanao is aiming to move even faster towards a balanced renewable energy and fossil fuel mix. This move underpins industrialization, job creation, and resilience. To achieve this, we need to mobilize, to tap billions of pesos of investments.”
Photo handout: CREAM Project/Gibson Bacas
The campaign for a 50:50 renewable energy (RE) to fossil fuel in the energy mix of Mindanao by 2030 aims to overtake the national target of 35:65 by 2030. a target that is part of the Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) to decarbonization under the Paris Climate Deal of 2015. The current RE to fossil ratio in the Mindanao Grid is 33% RE: 67% fossil.
The 3rd MCEF also called on the Dept. of Energy (DOE) to strengthen the coal moratorium and expand it to cover brownfield or expansion of coal plants whose applications were done before the coal moratorium took effect in 2030. The Energy Storage Project, an unsolicited proposal to rehabilitate the Agus-Pulangi Hydroelectric Complex also drew support from the annual forum.
Moving forward, the 3rd MCEF called on the DOE to accede to proposals of MINDA to reconvene and reconstitute the Mindanao Power Monitoring Committee (MPMC) to facilitate energy transition in Mindanao.
MARKET SIGNALS
To mobilize the needed investments, “Mindanao power consumers should create the demand for renewable energy. We have to create a mindset, we have to create a demand for renewable energy,” said Assistant Secretary Montenegro.
“The DOE should send the right market signals that renewable energy is the way forward in Mindanao. It should be sensitive and responsive to the aspirations of Mindanaoans to have clean, affordable and secure energy in the short term,” said BenCyrus G. Ellorin of the Consumers for Renewable Energy Action in Mindanao (CREAM). Further noting that “the current government target of 35:65 in 2030 is business-as-usual, and not ambitious enough.”
Engr. Darwin Daymiel, General Manager of the Agusan del Norte Electric Cooperative (ANECO) said that investments in RE has become more stable and cheaper. “RE prices are not volatile like coal and building RE plants enjoys tax exemptions and other incentives,” he said. The current RE share of ANECO’s energy mix is already at 56%.
The island needs at least 1,400 megawatts of new renewable energy capacity in 2030 to attain parity with fossil fuel. The projected peak demand in 2030 is 5,800MW, while the current installed capacity for renewable energy is around 1,500MW.
CALL OUT TO DOE
Meanwhile, the 3rd MCEF, participated by leaders from civil society, business sector, electric cooperatives, academe, and consumers, is asking the DOE to listen to the aspirations of Mindanao power stakeholders and align policies that would accelerate energy transition in the island with the higher target by 2030.
The recent pronouncement by DOE Secretary Sharon Garin relaxing the coal moratorium has drawn criticism. “The declaration of the DOE further waters down the already nebulous coal moratorium. Why is the DOE undermining its own policies?” Ellorin added.
Participants also expressed regrets over the absence of DOE in the event. “No matter how loud our shouts here, if our voices will only land on deaf ears, nothing will happen,” said Daymiel of DOE’s absence from the 3rd MCEF despite diligent efforts to have them in the forum.
RECONSTITUTE MINDANAO POWER COMMITTEE
Moving forward, the 3rd MCEF is requesting the DOE to accede to MINDA’s proposal to reconvene and reconstitute the MPMC, to be more inclusive with representatives from civil society, business sector, electric cooperatives and consumers. This time, the focus should be on development policies and measures to accelerate the island’s energy transition.
The MPMC was constituted to address the island’s supposed power shortage over a decade ago. “This time, we need a body that would address the energy transition of Mindanao, leading to 50:50 in 2030,” said Ellorin. MINDA and the DOE are co-chairs of the MPMC, created in 2012.
NO MORE NEW COAL
Montenegro stressed that for the Mindanao grid to attain renewable energy to fossil fuel parity in 2030, there should no longer have new coal-fired power plants, and expansion of existing ones should no longer be allowed.
He also called for the decommissioning of the aging SPI Power Inc. (formerly STEAG State Power) Mindanao Coal-fired Power Plant in Villanueva, Misamis Oriental. The Build-Operate-Transfer contract of SPI is set to expire in 2031. The plant, however, has been a candidate for early retirement under the Asian Development Bank’s Early Transition Mechanism.
ROLE OF AGUS-PULANGI
The rehabilitation of the 1,001MW Agus Pulangi Hydroelectric Complex (APHC), dubbed as Mindanao’s crown jewel, is another crucial piece in reaching the 50:50 target. The APHC is Mindanao’s largest power asset, and its rehabilitation would provide stability to the grid and compensate for the retirement of the 232MW SPI-Mindanao Coal-fired power plant, said Montenegro.
A Mindanao-based company, Greenergy Development Corp., has developed the proposal, the Energy Storage Project (ESP) for the rehabilitation, operation, and maintenance of the APHC and submitted it as an unsolicited proposal to the Public-Private-Partnership Center (PPP Center) last September.
The Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corp. (PSALM) is awaiting the results of the PPP Center’s review before conducting its own technical evaluation and, if found feasible, subject the ESP unsolicited proposal to a Swiss challenge. PSALM wants the APHC rehabilitation to start next year, said Virginia Reyes, officer-in-charge of PSALM’s asset privatization department.
The 3rd MCEF, held last November 19-20, 2025, at the LMX Convention Center, was organized by MINREACH in partnership with the WWF, City Government of Butuan, the Institute for Climate and Sustainable Cities (ICSC), and the Consumers for Renewable Energy Action in Mindanao (CREAM).
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