Quezon city: Supply remains adequate to meet requirements of the energy-heavy data center industry but a Department of Energy (DOE) official said they need to know the sector’s long-term plan to weigh its impact on the power sector. DOE Undersecretary Rowena Cristina Guevara, during the ABS-CBN News Channel forum dubbed ‘The Clean Energy Shift: Powering a Green Economy with Renewable Energy’ at the television station’s office in Quezon City on Thursday, said they are working with the private sector vis- -vis the power requirement of the expanding data center industry.

According to Philippines News Agency, Guevara explained that data centers have around 120-megawatt requirement to date, and the industry forecasts this to rise to around 500MW in the next few years. Guevara said this requirement will be met since the DOE has, so far, awarded over 1,300 renewable energy (RE) service contracts, with a capacity of over 150 gigawatts.

‘So that means that the off take for these green energy auction winners is also guaranteed. And also with the other 1,300 renewable service contracts, there is a market for them,’ she said. ‘To us, this is exciting especially we’re going into AI (artificial intelligence) all over the world. It will be good if we have the power, or the energy to power this up.’

In an interview after the event, Guevara said she is awaiting a roadmap report from the Data Center Association of the Philippines and she expects this to be submitted within the year. ‘We have to make sure we don’t put up too much power plants. We just need to be able to meet their demands,’ she said.

Guevara explained that there is a need to check the power supply and demand margin because ‘if we have (power) plants that are suddenly on forced outage, it’s not good for the country.’ (PNA)