Surge In Foreign Investment Powers Up Country’s Green Revolution
- November 3, 2025
Fully foreign-owned companies could generate as much as 20 gigawatts (GW) of power through various renewable energy (RE) projects across the country, the Department of Energy (DOE) said, demonstrating the immediate effects of the country lifting its 40% foreign ownership cap for the RE sector.
Energy Undersecretary Rowena Cristina Guevara believes that this new pro-liberalization stance is a “clear signal” to foreign investors that “the Philippines is open for clean energy business”.
Winds Of Change
The DOE is optimistic that foreign players can help accelerate the Philippine Energy Plan, which aims to achieve a 35% RE share by 2030 and 50% by 2040. The projected infusion of 20 GW of RE will be a much-needed boost to the country’s current total installed power, which is only at around 29 MW as of 2024.
New foreign investment in RE is distributed among 75 contracts secured by the government as of 2025. 53 of these contracts are onshore wind projects, while 9 are offshore wind projects, signaling a strategic pivot to leverage the various wind corridors all across the country.
Foreign capital can help flesh out the country’s offshore wind hopes, which face significant challenges. “The road is not easy – everybody has the same problems—transmission, permitting, and of course, bankability,” Undersecretary Guevara said. “Building an offshore wind is quite complex, and we’re learning from our developers all the problems that they are encountering,” she added.
Foreign contracts in wind will generate a total of 18,693.95 MW. The remaining 13 contracts are for solar energy projects and are expected to generate 1,297.52 MW.
An Enabling Business Environment
To help stimulate more foreign investments on renewables, The DOE launched the green energy auction (GEA) program. The program consists of bidding rounds designed to attract industry leaders across the globe. Under the third round of bidding (GEA-3), the DOE has awarded over 6,600 MW of contracts this year. An additional 9,400 MW of bids were also received this year under GEA-4.
More bidding rounds are scheduled for this year, with an eye on fixed-bottom offshore wind and biomass/waste-to-energy (WTE) technologies. “By the end of this year, we plan to announce auctions number six, seven, eight, nine and so on – so that people will know; and the developers and bankers especially will know when the projects are going to come online; and when the projects need the funding,” Guevara said.
“What we’ve found out is that there is appetite from our local banks in investment in the renewables,” she added. “What is driving now the investment landscape is actually the green energy auction program.”
Guevara also said that hitting the country’s RE targets requires around P20 trillion to P31 trillion in clean energy investments through 2040.
The country’s green future now looks brighter as foreign investments in renewables pour in, thanks to the Department of Energy’s Green Energy Auction (GEA) program.
“We recognize that private sector investment is central in achieving our targets. Hence, we are creating an enabling business environment to make RE more appealing to investors,” she added
Call To Action
The GEA program comes at a crucial point in the Philippine Energy Plan, where the RE mix fell from 35% in 2008 to 22% this year, as revealed by Undersecretary Guevara. “Our energy mix tells a story. This is not a failure – it is a call to action,” she said.
The reality is that coal-fired power plants still account for 62.5% of the country’s power generation mix, as they provide a readily available, quick solution to urgent power shortage problems, especially in the countryside.
But with much-needed bolstering from foreign RE investments, the hope is that the country can address its short-term as well as long-term energy problems with a more diverse energy mix. This would require a careful assessment of the impact of an eventual transition from coal-fire power plants to RE.
Sources:
https://www.philstar.com/business/2025/10/14/2479635/foreign-firms-corner-20-gw-re-projects
https://mb.com.ph/2025/09/22/doe-enticing-global-investors-with-4-more-re-capacity-auctions
