MANILA, Philippines — The Philippines said it is not fair to compare its coal use with bigger nations like China and Indonesia after a report revealed that the country saw a surge in coal dependence for power generation in 2023. 

Despite pledges to switch to cleaner energy and ditch coal, the Philippines and Indonesia ramped up their reliance on the polluting fossil fuel, a key driver of man-made climate change, energy think tank Ember said in its report released last week. 

The Philippines’ reliance on coal for electricity generation rose to 61.9% in 2023 from 59.1% the previous year.

This increase, according to Ember, propelled the Philippines past China and Poland—historically major coal users—and even Indonesia to become Southeast Asia’s most coal-reliant nation. 

Meanwhile, coal use in Indonesia grew marginally to a new record high of 61.8%. 

“While the Philippines relies heavily on coal-fired power generation, the absolute amount of generation and corresponding emissions are minimal as compared to those of China and Indonesia,” the Philippine Department of Energy (DOE) said in a statement on July 10, Wednesday. 

“Therefore, the Philippines, cannot be reasonably compared to these larger economies, which have different energy strategies and infrastructures adapted to their specific demographic and economic conditions,” DOE added. 

Citing data from the Global Energy Monitor Report as of January, the energy department said China has 1,136.7 gigawatts of installed coal power plant capacity, Indonesia has 51.6 GW, and the Philippines has 12.1 GW.

In terms of power generation, China generated 5.4 million GWh from coal, Indonesia generated 189,683 GWh, and the Philippines generated 65,052 GWh in 2021. DOE said that despite an increase to 69,472 GWh in 2023, the Philippines coal power generation remained much lower than those of China and Indonesia. 

It added that China was the largest greenhouse gas emitter in 2022, contributing 29.2% of global emissions. Indonesia ranked 7th with 2.3%, while the Philippines accounted for only 0.5% of global emissions.

Ember’s report also found that Indonesia climbed to become the world’s fifth-largest coal power generator in 2023, surpassing South Korea. 

While the Philippines remained the 17th largest coal market globally, behind neighboring Vietnam (11th) and Malaysia (15th), it ranked 8th in terms of the share of coal used in its total electricity generation.

In 2020, the Philippines declared a moratorium on proposals to build new coal-fired plants to curb greenhouse gas emissions. However, the country’s energy department anticipates power generators to add around 2,255 megawatts of coal capacity by 2028. 

Indonesia is poised to secure funding from developed countries and multilateral lenders to accelerate the retirement of coal-fired power plants through initiatives like the Just Energy Transition Partnership (JETP) and Energy Transition Mechanism.

Renewable laggards 

Ember stressed that sluggish progress in renewables forced the Philippines and Indonesia to turn to coal to meet their surging electricity demand. 

“Indonesia and the Philippines have seen limited growth in their renewable electricity generation, as their wind and solar potential remains almost entirely untapped,” the think tank said. 

In the Philippines, wind and solar increased to 3.7 terawatt-hour (TWh) in 2023 from less than 1 TWh in 2015. The current contribution of renewables to the country’s power mix remains at just 22%, falling short of the ambitious goal of reaching 35% within six years.

Indonesia’s wind and solar power generation has seen a meager rise of just 1.2 TWh since the 2015 Paris Agreement. This growth represented only 4% of the total rise in the country’s renewables.

Both the Philippines and Indonesia fell behind other Southeast Asian nations in wind and solar power deployment. In the rest of the region, wind and solar increased by around 46 TWh, from 3 TWh in 2015 to 50 TWh in 2023, driven by Vietnam’s growth.

This lack of substantial progress was reflected in their electricity mix. The Philippines (3.2%) was ahead of Indonesia (0.3%), but still behind the regional average (4.4%) and leader Vietnam (13%)

“With vast renewable energy resources, the country is embarking on various initiatives to further explore and accelerate the development and increase the utilization of clean and indigenous energy sources,” DOE said. 

Given the affordability and rapid deployment of wind and solar power, “Indonesia and the Philippines could instead accelerate their development to meet the rising power demand, thereby moving closer to their net zero targets,” said Kostantsa Rangelova, Ember’s Global Electricity Analyst.