Renewable Energy Act of 2008 (Philippines)

The Renewable Energy Act of the Philippines declares that it is the policy of the State to accelerate the exploration and development of renewable energy sources, increase the utilization of renewable energy, encourage the development and utilization of renewable energy resources as tools to effectively prevent or reduce harmful emission to balance economic growth and development with health and environment, and establish the necessary infrastructure and mechanism to carry out the mandates of the Act and existing laws. The Act directs that the National Renewable Energy Board set the minimum percentage of generation from renewable energy sources, and determine to which sector Renewable Portfolio Standard shall be imposed. The Act mandates the development of a Feed-in Tariff (FIT) System for electricity produced from wind, solar, ocean, run-of-river hydropower and biomass, and to promulgate the FIT System rules which shall provide for priority connections to the grid for electricity from emerging renewable energy resources, priority purchase, transmission, and payment for such electricity, and determination of fixed tariffs to be paid for the electricity from each type of emerging renewable energy and the period for the application of the rates. The Act also directs the establishment of a Renewable Energy Market, a Green Energy Option, as well as net metering interconnection standards and pricing methodology. The Act likewise provides certain incentives for developers of renewable energy including Income Tax Holiday for the first seven years of commercial operations, duty-free importation of machinery, special realty tax rates on equipment and machinery, zero percent Value-Added Tax Rate, among others.