December 12, 2025
The Climate Reality Project Philippines, in partnership with the Department of Energy (DOE), and the Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA), recently held the second leg of Choosing Renewables: Information Campaign on the Green Energy Option Program (GEOP) and other Voluntary Renewable Energy Mechanisms in Tagbilaran, Bohol.
Participants included local power distribution utility companies, government officials, and business owners, whose interest in renewable energy (RE) was evident during the series of talks.
The organization aimed to showcase the many benefits of shifting to clean energy, especially in the provinces of Visayas and Mindanao. These areas are frequently subjected to electricity shortages due to recurring power plant outages coupled with rising demand.
“What we want to do is to make sure that access to GEOP can be seen in all provinces and all regions that are accessible to the grid. Then we find that there are some bureaucratic hurdles and limited RE supply accommodated to GEOP, but the work that we’ve done so far has been addressing these problems, and we are excited to see what the coming years will do to GEOP,” said Pocholo Enriquez, Energy Program Lead of Climate Reality Philippines.
More than issues of energy security, the VisMin islands also face high risk of climate change impacts, like strong storms and intense heat waves. The most recent of these is Typhoon Tino, with more than a hundred fatalities across VisMin during its onslaught.
Given VisMin’s issues of energy instability and climate hazards, the Tagbilaran leg of Choosing REnewables emphasized the importance of investing in RE as a means to address both dilemmas. Through GEOP and other voluntary RE mechanisms, shifting to cleaner and stabler power is made easier for businesses most impacted by energy and climate woes.
“We are not only expanding customer choice, we are also creating a stronger market signal for investments in clean and indigenous energy resources. As you all know, having imported fuels has a lot of challenges both in price and supply. So this means more opportunities for innovation, greater competition, and a significant push towards reducing our dependence on imported fuels,” said DOE Undersecretary Mylene Capongcol.
By nature, RE is a more stable source of energy. Unlike traditional energy sources like coal and oil, when grounded in local, natural resources (sunlight, water, and wind), RE is significantly less vulnerable to global fuel price shocks. Incorporated into existing energy sources, RE also diversifies the country’s power mix. In the unfortunate event of coal plant shortages, RE can be tapped to power communities,
On top of this, investing in RE is a means to reduce one’s carbon footprint— a term representing contributions to global warming. Carbon footprints or emissions are produced by fossil fuel usage, on which most power plants depend.
Shifting to RE reduces one’s dependence on fossil fuels, thereby considerably lessening carbon emissions. Given the energy sector’s huge contribution to the Philippines emissions, energy policymakers and civil society stakeholders alike continually emphasize the need to lower the country’s carbon footprint through an RE transition.
“Our goal is to promote how renewable energy can empower people with a promising future of sustainable living on a habitable planet,” said Aimee Oliveros, Interim Branch Manager of Climate Reality Philippines.
In regions highly vulnerable to climate impacts and power shortages, GEOP works as a mechanism to hit two birds with one stone. On top of building a more secure energy sourcing plan for its communities, VisMin can also contribute to the global movement to reduce emissions by investing in RE through GEOP.
“The GEOP market is expanding rapidly, and overall, electricity demand is growing every year. There are more opportunities for substantial development, especially in Visayas and Mindanao, as we shift to cleaner energy,” said Michael John Domingo, Science Research Specialist at the DOE’s Renewable Energy Management Bureau.
To dive deeper into the expanding GEOP market, Climate Reality Philippines is set to release a study on GEOP’s impact and benefits on its current end-users. The report will be launched January 2026, serving as a follow-up study to the organization’s prior analysis of GEOP’s role in enabling the RE renaissance in the Philippines.
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