Published August 24, 2017, 10:00 PM By Myrna M.
Velasco
Solar Philippines will be expanding
the capacity of its solar manufacturing facility in Sto Tomas, Batangas to
2,000 megawatts (MW) equivalent by next year from existing capacity of 750MW at
its formal inauguration this week.
According to Solar Philippines
Leandro Leviste, the expanded base of its solar production facility will cater
to both its targeted markets locally and overseas.
At its high-end target, he indicated
that the equivalent volume of exports coming from the Batangas solar production
lines would reach as much as P20 billion. That will be an increase from
P10-billion target this year.
On market expansion, Leviste noted
that countries in the Southeast Asian region will be on top – primarily
Indonesia and Myanmar.
“Within this year, we will complete
pilot projects in Indonesia, Myanmar and perhaps a few more countries with a
lot of off-grid potential,” he said. Leviste emphasized that his company is
inclined on providing energy access even to areas that are seen unviable by
other providers – whether that would be in the Philippines or other countries
in the region.
“In many of these places,
international companies do not want to take a bet on rural areas with poor
credit,” he said.
Leviste added “we’re participating
in a lot of bids and other opportunities in Southeast Asia, and we believe by
next year, we will complete at least 200MW in Southeast Asia.”
The young businessman’s promise to
prospective customers of energy produced from their solar facilities’ rollout
would be at least 30-percent cost savings in their electricity bills.
He said solar installation can
already be done massively, both in on-grid and off-grid domains of the
Philippines, because of the precipitously sliding cost of the technology on a
global scale.
“This comes as solar panel costs
have fallen 90 percent over the last 10 years; and 50 percent in the last three
(3) years alone, prompting countries like China and India to source majority of
their new power requirements from renewables,” he stressed.
Leviste added the company’s factory
“enabled us to generate the lowest cost power in the history of the
Philippines,” with him asserting that the lowest bid it matched to an offer to
major utility firm like Manila Electric Company (Meralco) had been at P2.99 per
kilowatt-hour.
He emphasized that an average family
paying P3,000 on their electric bills would likely see reduction on their costs
by P2,000 a month.
The dilemma on intermittency could
also be addressed by coupling solar technology with battery storage, hence,
ensuring round-the-clock electricity supply for the end-consumers.
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