By
Lenie Lectura - April 15, 2018
CLEANTECH Global
Renewables Inc. expects to push through with the expansion of its solar farm in
Bulacan by 30 megawatts (MW) this year.
“We are looking at
expanding our Bulacan. Thirty megawatts is our next phase. We are definitely
looking to expand and maybe by the third quarter this year, we will start
constructing,” said Salvador Antonio Castro, Cleantech president and CEO.
The company launched in 2016 its 15-MW solar farm in San Ildefonso, Bulacan, at
a cost “close to $2 million per MW.”
The expansion of the
solar farm, he added, is valued at “less than $1 million per MW.”
Cleanteach will sell
the output of its Bulacan project, under the project proponent, San lldefonso
Alternative Energy Corp., to distribution utility firms via power-supply
agreements (PSA). He mentioned the Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) and the Retail
Electricity Supply (RES) market as possible customers. “We are talking to
Meralco. We are talking to others. We are also looking at RES. Obviously, just
like everybody else, we are looking for PSAs. It’s a ready market. You are paid
for seven days and there is no 12-month to 16-month delay in collection unlike
in feed-in-tariff [FiT] projects,” he said.
Its 15-MW project was
enrolled under the FiT rate of P8.69 per kilowatt hour (kWh) for the next 20
years. However, payment from the government has been delayed as it has yet to
seek approval from the Energy Regulatory Commission.
Castro said the cost
per kWh of the 30-MW project will be pegged at spot-market rates.
“We follow the trend in
WESM [Wholesale Electricity Spot Market]. It has come down from the last two to
three years. The average in the last 12 months is something at P3.75 per kWh or
less. We need to get it lower than the WESM average,” he added.
Once the expansion
project takes off this year, Cleantech will proceed with “several projects
in the pipeline.”
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