Where Law and Data Converge: Key to Robust Energy System Planning in the Philippines

Various structural challenges historically confront the Philippines’ grid ecosystems.

These range from capacity shortage, systemic brownouts and budget allocation issues to disruptions from natural disasters and external supply chain and price fluctuations. Effectively navigating these would require an energy transition plan that effectively bridge the gap between energy security and shifts toward clean power sources.

The Philippines itself has set an ambitious target in the Philippine Energy Plan 2023-2050 (PEP) to increase renewable energy share in its total energy mix to 35% by 2030. 

Yet, there is more to driving a just energy transition than simply putting the plans and targets in place.

Beyond establishing the right policy and regulatory frameworks – the real measure of success is whether these can be translated into meaningful, sustainable and truly equitable outcomes.

Where Data and Legal Expertise Move in Tandem

Policy diffusion through active dialogue, partnership and exchange of know-hows is essential toward ensuring adaptive energy governance conducive to reliable, affordable, and clean energy outcomes for all..

Setting a critical benchmark for cross-disciplinary collaboration, ClientEarth kickstarted its strategic partnership with climate tech and analytics non-profit, TransitionZero, in January 2024.

Framed as an initiative to accelerate a just energy transition across Southeast Asia – this comprehensive partnership integrated TransitionZero’s data and modelling expertise with ClientEarth’s policy insights and in-depth understanding of regulator and investor requirements.

A central pillar of this partnership is advancing legal capacity-building and enhancing regulators’ access to energy system modelling platforms, to help bridge their regulatory frameworks with real-world development.

ClientEarth and TransitionZero have jointly provided robust training to energy players to ensure that tools are effectively integrated into financially viable energy plans. TransitionZero also ensures that their tools and datasets are fully open-access. This subsequently allows energy players to freely utilise them for accurate forecasts and energy system planning to understand what outcomes could stem from any given regulation design or choice.

One notable example has been their efforts to engage with the Philippine Department of Energy. While ClientEarth’s advisory support vitally embedded accountability and robust oversight into the wider development of the Department’s Energy Plan – TransitionZero helped to strategically introduce its modelling software and response analysis to further bolster evidence-based planning, inform policy choices, and support the fundamental regulatory design.

Together, these efforts have helped with the Department’s power grid modelling studies, infrastructure modernisation plan, and coal plant refinancing initiatives – steering its policy direction towards a more scalable, reliable, and affordable clean energy regime.

Through jointly harnessing data and legal expertise, ClientEarth and TransitionZero have exemplified how regulatory reforms can be holistically addressed to enhance long-term feasibility of transition plans and subsequent implementations. Such an integrated approach helps translate ambition into action – supporting climate-aligned strategies that carry crucial promises of a more sustainable, resilient, and reliable energy future.