Winners of the bidding for the development of pre-determined hydrogen resource areas in the country may be announced soon, the Department of Energy (DOE) said.
DOE Secretary Raphael Lotilla told reporters at the sidelines of the Pilipinas Conference 2024 in Makati City last week the agency is awaiting official notification from the Office of the President (OP)
“…That’s proceeding, but then the service contracts have to be submitted to the Office of the President for approval. So, I don’t want… to pre-empt the Office of the President from acting on it and so, we will make the announcementswhen the President has approved the same,” Lotilla said.
The DOE received five applications under the 2024 Philippine Bid Round for service contracts for native hydrogen exploration in Zambales which all passed the completeness check and are eligible for further substantive evaluation.
The highest-ranking applicants were endorsed to the OP.
The DOE earlier this year issued a circular meant to promote investments to utilize hydrogen in energy production in the country.
At present, among the eyed use of hydrogen in the energy sector is its potential to be co-fired with natural gas to make the latter’s combustion cleaner.
