Monalisa Dimalanta, the chairperson of Philippine government advisory body National Renewable Energy Board (NREB), has stepped down from her post, effective 31 March.
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She will now focus fulltime on her duties as a lawyer at the Puyat Jacinto & Santos law firm, where she was a senior partner before she accepted the NREB chairmanship in 2019. She was leading the firm’s energy practice at that time.
“We were able to accomplish a lot in two years, and I completed what I set out to do, which was to put renewable energy discussions in the mainstream of energy independence agenda by making sure renewable energy sits at the core of energy planning,” Dimalanta told Eco-Business.
“I will remain in the space as I assist stakeholders in the energy sector as counsel.”
There is no replacement for her yet in NREB, but her deputy Cholo Bernad of power firm Aboitiz Energy is now acting chairperson.
In her role for NREB, Dimalanta helped pave the way for the country’s first green auction set for June. Called the Green Energy Auction Programme, distributon utilities will compete for the procurement of renewable energy supply for an initial capacity of 2 gigawatts (GW).
The auction is one of the policies eyed to help the country achieve the goals set under the Renewable Energy Act of 2008.
It was also in the Filipina lawyer’s term that NREB determined an additional 22.4GW of renewable energy was needed by 2040 for the country to meet its climate goals.
Another policy that Dimalanta worked on during her stint was the net metering system, which allows the distribution utility to pay owners of renewable energy sources like solar panels for excess energy that feeds back into the grid. NREB also launched an information campaign for consumers to source electricity directly from renewable energy companies under the Green Energy Option Programme (GEOP).
