posted March 03, 2016 at 11:40 pm by Alena
Mae S. Flores
Three more power solar plants are
now operational, adding 214 megawatts to the country’s electricity supply, the
Energy Department said Thursday.
Energy Secretary Zenaida Monsada
said during the Shell Power Progress Together Forum that two solar plants were
inaugurated Thursday, including the 135-MW solar facility in Cadiz, Negros
Occidental of Soleq Holdings, and the 50-MW solar project of PetroSolar Corp.
in Tarlac province.
The other completed solar project is
Enfinity Philippines’ 29-MW Digos solar plant in Davao, which was still
undergoing site verification.
Monsada said solar projects were
“fast moving renewable energy resources” and in a hurry to meet the March 15
deadline to avail of feed-in tariff incentives.
Soleq switched on the P10-billion,
132-MW solar farm in Barangay Tinampaan, Cadiz City, Negros Occidental
Thursday, becoming the largest operational solar power plant in Southeast Asia.
The massive solar farm, sprawled
over 176 hectares of land, went online in a simple ceremony attended by
national and local officials as well representatives of Soleq, the Asian
utility that built the facility.
Conergy, a leading German
photovoltaic solution and service provider and PetroSolar Corp., a company
owned by PetroGreen Energy Corp. and EEI Power Corp., held the inauguration of
the Tarlac solar power project Thursday.
Petrosolar and Conergy said the
50-MW facility was synchronized to the Luzon grid and started delivering power
on Jan. 27, 2016.
Meanwhile, Enfinity business
development director Bill Ruccius said the Digos project was now completed and
would undergo site verification by the Energy Department this week.
Former Sen. Juan Miguel Zubiri said
the Philippines now had 10 fully functional solar power plants with a combined
installed capacity of 377 MW.
He said additional solar farms were
now being put up in Bacolod City, La Carlota City and in the municipalities of
Murcia and Manapla in Negros Occidental and Mabinay in Negros Oriental.
“We think it would be good to have
another round of FIT to encourage and get the supply chain going,” Ruccius
said.
“Once you get the volume of products
moving through the system with the supply chain going and the prices going down
then once that happens, everybody can benefit here in the Philippines from the
lower prices,” he said.
Ruccius said there was still a
strong interest in renewable energy projects especially for solar and wind,
which should receive incentives from the government.
“From the developer’s standpoint,
there are many projects that are in different stages of development today that
did not get into construction for this 500-MW FIT, so there are many projects
that would be put very quickly, get into construction for the next round of FIT
both for wind and solar,” he said.
Monsada said once all active solar
contracts were completed, the 450-MW second wave of installation target for
solar would be oversubscribed.
Other completed solar projects were
the 63.3-MW plant of Solar Philippines, Citicore’s 18-MW plant in Bataan and
the 25-MW solar plant in Silay.
Renewable energy projects that met
the deadline could avail of the P8.69-per-kilowatt-hour approved FIT rate.
Monsado, however, said the
department would still determine the completion stage of the three solar
projects and whether they were already on commercial operations and connected
to the power grid.
“I’m waiting for the report because
the DOE staff are still on the ground doing verification. We require all those
in the solar race to write us to ensure that they will be included,” she said.
“If there is an extension or not, I
cannot say yet. We will not talk about extension and expansion until the March
15 deadline, and until NREB [National Renewable Energy Board] completes its
report. NREB will determine if there’s a need and how we address the need,”
Monsada said.
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