SUNDAY, 23 JANUARY 2011 19:25 PAUL ANTHONY A. ISLA / REPORTER
YOUIL Ensys, Korea’s largest engineering and renewable-energy company, is set to invest $160 million to set up solar power farms in the Visayas.
Scott Kim, Youil chief executive officer, told reporters that Youil Renewable Energy Corp.—its local arm—will be putting up solar power facilities in Negros and Bohol.
Kim said that his company is planning to put up a 30-megawatt (MW) solar power farm in a 70-hectare land in Negros with a project cost of about $120 million, and another 10 MW in Bohol, which is estimated to cost $40 million.
Once they have secured all necessary government and local government permits, Kim said, they expect to put up these plants within six months.
Kim quickly added that they will also still wait for the Energy Regulatory Commission’s (ERC) approval of the feed-in tariffs (FIT) before they proceed with their planned projects.
The feed-in tariff guarantees renewable-energy developers a fixed rate due to them over a period of time.
Kim also appealed to the government to accelerate the setting and approving of the FIT, even after saying his company was willing to wait for the FIT to be finalized.
Kim pointed out that it’s already been a year and a half and setting of the FIT rates has yet to be done.
“The government hasn’t given any answer on the price so we’d like to know. We’d like to push the government [to approve it],”he said.
Kim said it is his company’s first time to infuse capital in the Philippines, adding that his company is in the environmental engineering industry that builds and operates solar energy plants. It was founded in 1980 and has headquarters in Hwasung, South Korea.
Kim expressed optimism that the government will soon resolve and finalize the FIT and that it will get to come out with the FIT rate by midyear.
“Apart from Korea, Malaysia and Thailand, the Philippines would be the fourth country in Asia to adopt a FIT mechanism.
The FIT is also being carried out in Spain, Germany and Canada. We are willing to wait. It is supposed to be out by March this year, but they postponed it to May or June. We’re eager. We already purchased the land so we have to wait, otherwise we have to resell our land,” Kim said.
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