Listed firm RASLAG Corporation (ASLAG) is eyeing to fetch higher revenues this year with the commercial operation of its 18.01-megawatt Raslag-3 solar farm project in Pampanga.

Based on the company’s forecast, the scale of electricity generation of the new solar plant could reach 13.5-gigawatt hours (GWh) for the rest of the year. The higher revenue forecast is also boosted by increases in volume generation at 27GWh by 2023.

According to RASLAG, if prices at the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM) will hit P5.30 per kilowatt hour (kWh), “Raslag-3 can potentially contribute revenues of around P71.6 million in 2022 and P142.9 million in 2023.”

This is already the third operating solar farm development of the Filipino listed company, with the initial two projects already reaching its 23.19-megawatt peak (MWp) and 95.2MWp installations that are also sited in Pampanga.

The Nepomuceno-owned firm indicated that its third solar plant reached commercial operations phase recently after its receipt of provisional approval from the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) on the facility’s connection to the grid.

In terms of revenue prospects, the company primarily noted the relatively high WESM settlement prices this year -- which had been at: P7.86 per kWh in January; P6.41 per kWh in February; P7.73 per kWh in March; P6.68 per kWh in April; P6.59 per kWh in May; and P9.88 per kWh in June.

The array of renewable energy (RE) projects being pursued by the Nepomuceno-led listed firm is in support to the ‘energy transition agenda’ of the government, which casts the country’s pathway away from the dominance of fossil fuels in the energy mix.

The first two solar plants of the company had been incentivized with feed-in-tariff (FIT) perks – at least 10.046MW capacity of its Raslag-1 plant was accorded with P9.68 per kWh FIT in 2015; while 13.141MW capacity of its second solar facility was granted a FIT of P8.69 per kWh in 2016.

The appetite of investors in the first and second waves of RE installations in the country had been generally whetted by the FIT incentives. For the fresh round of capital flow in the sector, the Department of Energy (DOE) is eyeing that this can be stimulated by the Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS) policy.

Under the RPS, the distribution utilities (DUs) are mandated to source certain percentage of their supply portfolio from RE capacities; and that will essentially provide market to the generated electricity of the RE developers.

To address the need for RE supply to be funneled to the power utilities, the energy department will regularly auction RE capacities and these shall be underpinned with corresponding long term power supply agreements.