Solar Philippines is eyeing to develop a 500-megawatt solar project, which it is lining up to help solve the country’s power supply shortages.
The proposed project will be under corporate vehicle Solar Philippines Nueva Ecija Corporation, but there is no definite timeframe given yet on its construction.
The initial installation, according to the company, will be at 225 megawatts; and the balance of the targeted capacity will follow.
Leandro Leviste, founder of Solar Philippines, said the company is aiming to replicate the initial successes of its solar projects – a solar development journey that his company started more than five years ago.
“When we began developing this project in 2016, others didn’t believe that large-scale solar would be viable. Because we made this bet then, we now have projects ready to meet the country’s gap in power supply,” he noted.
As blueprinted, the solar farm’s capacity can be initially traded at the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM); but the developer-firm indicated it is keeping its option also on underwriting power supply agreements (PSAs).
“The company is keeping its options open on off-take for the project, which can sell its output into the WESM during the sunniest hours when demand is highest,” the company emphasized.
Once the facility reaches commercial stream, the company said the project “will supplement Luzon grid’s thin reserves, and help prevent the rotating outages that have affected millions of Filipinos,” especially the recent events in this year’s summer months.
At construction phase, the project would be able to generate 5,000 jobs; while more than 500 will be employed once the plant reaches commercial operations.
The sponsor-firm added this will help in the government’s aggressive drive to generate employment opportunities in the countryside – which is fitting in the facility’s host community in Peñaranda, a fourth class municipality in Nueva Ecija.
Leviste indicated “this is representative of the rest of our pipeline of projects, which were not viable historically, but are viable today with the lower cost of solar and storage.”