NREB chair Dimalanta resigns as RE advances ‘energy transition’ in PH
By Myrna M. Velasco – March 22, 2021, 4:00 PM
from Manila Bulletin
The chairperson of the National Renewable Energy Board (NREB), Atty. Monalisa C. Dimalanta, has resigned from her post effective March 31 this year and is reportedly eyeing a work in the private sector.
According to highly placed sources, Dimalanta opted to give up her chairmanship at the RE body “because her earnings from her law practice can no longer sustain the ‘no salary arrangement’ that she signed up for at NREB.”
Atty. Monalisa C. Dimalanta (Photo credit: https://www.facebook.com/NREBPh/photos/; https://pjslaw.com/)
The source added that the NREB chair also had to ‘scale down’ on her lawyering work, “because out of delicadeza, she cannot accept clients that are affiliated with the renewable energy sector.”
Dimalanta has been a senior partner at the Puyat Jacinto & Santos (PJS) law firm before she accepted the NREB chairmanship post in March 2019. She was leading the energy practice of the law firm at the time.
A law graduate from the University of the Philippines, Dimalanta has served at the Department of Energy (DOE) during the term of former Energy Secretary Raphael “Popo” Lotilla under the Arroyo administration.
At NREB, she worked closely with the DOE’s Renewable Energy Management Bureau (DOE-REMB) in firming up the updated National Renewable Energy Plan (NREP) that will cement the country’s energy transition pathway.
Under that development blueprint, the Philippines is targeting to increase RE installations to 44,671 megawatts until year 2040, so it can reverse the current dominance of fossil fuel technologies, primarily coal, in the prevailing energy mix of the country.
That will be an ambitious target because the Philippines will be taking off from dismal installations of 7,515MW RE at present – and these already account for both emerging (i.e. solar and wind) as well as conventional (i.e. hydro and geothermal) RE technologies.
Dimalanta’s stint at NREB also paved the way for the concretization of the propounded bidding for the initial 2,000MW of RE capacity that shall be included in the initial compliance year of the mandated participants – primarily the distribution utilities (DUs), to the Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS) policy.
As set out by the DOE, the auction for the preliminary RPS-underpinned capacity will be middle of this year; and studies as well as preparations had already been sorted by NREB as well as other relevant government agencies like the DOE and the Energy Regulatory Commission.
The RPS enforces a prescribed percentage of RE capacity that the DUs will need to secure from qualified RE suppliers. Essentially, this is a policy that provides market to RE capacities in the country.
Apart from RPS, the other investment-enticing perks being offered to RE developers are the net metering program as well as green energy option program (GEOP) that will place upon consumers’ the decision and preference to secure their energy service from RE suppliers.
