September 18, 2017
SOLAR PHILIPPINES Power Project
Holdings, Inc. has started constructing a 4-megawatt (MW) solar-battery farm in
Paluan, Occidental Mindoro province, which the company hopes to make a model
for remote towns in the country.
Leandro L. Leviste, president of
Solar Philippines, claims the project is set to become the world’s largest
island solar-battery micro-grid that can provide power to up to 20,000
Filipinos “at zero cost to the government, and at lower cost to consumers.”
“While traditional businesses prefer
to focus on larger markets like Metro Manila, we are hopeful that investing in
rural areas will help uplift Filipinos from poverty, and eventually create an
even larger market among the new middle class,” he said in a statement during
the weekend.
He said the project in “a town so
remote it had been deemed unviable by even the electric coop” would save P20
billion a year in diesel subsidies.
The Paluan project follows Solar
Philippines’ launch in August of its 800-MW factory in Batangas, the first
Filipino solar panel factory.
Ahead of the inauguration, the
company said it had submitted proposals to electric utilities to replace coal
power plants with 5,000 MW of solar farms.
Last month, Mr. Leviste disclosed an
offer to supply solar power for as low as P2.99 per kilowatt-hour, the lowest
rate so far of any new power plant in the country.
If accepted, the company estimates
this will save over P200 billion a year, lowering electricity rates by 30%, and
saving an average of P1,000 per family per month.
“We measure our success not based on
profit, but our contribution to our nation’s development. We aspire not to be
the biggest company, but the one that makes the biggest impact for Filipinos,
and hope the entire power industry can unite to support President Duterte’s
vision for cheaper, reliable electricity to make the Philippines a first-world
nation,” Mr. Leviste said.
Solar Philippines said it “is
discussions with various communities” to bring to bring its model “solar
cooperatives” nationwide and integrate irrigation and other initiatives to
create employment in rural areas.
“Around 10% of Filipinos lack access
to electricity. As many as 30% of Filipinos live in areas either without
electricity or with daily brownouts (scheduled and unscheduled), and around 70%
of Filipinos live in areas covered by electric coops, for most of which
brownouts are at least a weekly occurrence,” the company said. — Victor V.
Saulon
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