By Myrna M. Velasco The 20-megawatt solar power project expansion of Yuchengco-led PetroSolar Corporation had cornered warranted investment incentives from the Board of Investments (BOI), the company has announced. This will basically be an expansion of its first 50MW-peak solar farm facility that is also sited at the Central Technopark in Tarlac City. When that is completed, the company’s solar capacity portfolio within that site will already be scaled up to 70 megawatts. PetroSolar President Milagros V. Reyes noted that with BOI’s award of incentives registration for the Tarlac-2 project, the company can already advance into securing confirmation of commerciality (COC) from the Department of Energy. “We are excited by this new investment which will see our solar asset increase in capacity from 50MW to 70MW,” the company executive said. System of incentives for the two projects will be at divergent latitude – with the first 50MW remunerated under the feed-in-tariff (FIT) subsidy scheme; while the expansion phase will reach commercial stream under the era of the recently issued Renewable Portfolio Standards. The government-sponsored RPS edict prescribes a level of supply that distribution utilities (DUs) must procure from renewable energy (RE) capacities, hence, expanding the market base for such sub-segment of the energy sector. Project company PetroSolar is a joint venture of PetroGreen Energy Corporation (PGEC) and EEI Power Corporation, both firms are affiliated with the Yuchengco group. For the Tarlac-2 solar venture, PGEC Vice President and COO Francisco G. Delfin Jr. emphasized that “despite the current regulatory and market uncertainties, PGEC is pushing through with its calibrated expansion of RE assets in key locations to reach our goal of about 200MW-400MW installed capacity in 2-4 years time.” Apart from its solar portfolio, the Yuchengco group also had strategic investment on wind farm development for a 36MW capacity at its site in Nabas, Aklan.