Regional Power: Mitsubishi, partners to facilitate early retirement of Philippines coal power plants
Wednesday, May 7 2025 - 11:53 PM WIB
By Romel S. Gurky
Japanese giant Mitsubishi Corporation and its subsidiary Diamond Generating Asia, Limited (DGA) have joined forces with Philippines firm ACEN and Singapore firms GenZero, and Keppel Ltd. in a strategic partnership to advance the energy transition through the use of Transition Credits. This collaboration aims to support the early retirement of coal-fired power plants in favor of cleaner energy solutions, specifically replacing a 246 MW coal plant in the Philippines with sustainable, renewable energy.
The partnership, formalized with the signing of a Deed of Accession to the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), will explore the potential of leveraging Transition Credits—a market-based mechanism that helps accelerate decarbonization by enabling the early retirement of coal plants. This initiative builds on the earlier efforts of ACEN, which implemented the world’s first market-based Energy Transition Mechanism in 2022.
Shinichiro Suzuki, CEO of DGA, expressed the significance of the collaboration, stating, "We are honored to join this landmark initiative, which represents one of the world’s first steps toward realizing a credible and scalable Transition Credits scheme." This initiative is aimed at replacing coal power generation with renewable energy and supporting the global push for decarbonization.
The Transition Credits mechanism is designed to create an economically viable pathway for transitioning from coal to renewable energy, ensuring that power plant operators can retire coal plants without significant financial loss. The scheme also ensures that the transition is just, addressing social and economic impacts on communities that depend on coal for employment and energy.
The Transition Credits initiative will be conducted under the framework of the Paris Agreement, and the parties involved are working closely to ensure environmental and social integrity, with Verra approving the Coal to Clean Credit Initiative (CCCI) Methodology for the Accelerated Retirement of Coal-Fired Power Plants.
The collaboration will have a wide-reaching impact, not just in the Philippines but across the Asia-Pacific region. The partnership aligns with the regional efforts of APAC countries, including Indonesia and Japan, to accelerate their green energy transitions, and is a major step in advancing sustainable solutions across the energy sector, the companies said in a joint statement.
Editing by Alexander Ginting