DURING The Manila Times' "Propelling Renewable Energy against Climate Change" forum this past Wednesday, lawyer Monalisa Dimalanta, who is the former chairman of the National Renewable Energy Board (NREB) and one of the nation's foremost experts on the subject, touched on one of the programs the government is using to plan and facilitate the development of renewable energy (RE) in the Philippines. The program is called Grid Planning and Competitive Renewable Energy Zones, or CREZ for short, and is one of the truly impressive pieces of work done by the Department of Energy (DoE) under the Duterte administration. The Manila Times President and CEO Dante ‘Klink’ Ang 2nd and columnist Ben Kritz moderate the Times’ online forum titled ‘Propelling Renewable Energy against Climate Change’ on June 30, 2021. SCREENGRAB FROM ZOOMAnd to some extent, energy development is handicapped by the country's laws that keep power generation, transmission and distribution separate. CREZ is a planning process that identifies the most economic RE resource areas in the Philippines, so that transmission planning and expansion can be focused on these areas.

Source: Manila Times July 02, 2021 15:33 UTC