March 6, 2018 | 12:04 am
SOLAR FARM developer
SunAsia Energy, Inc. has lined up a total of 135 megawatts (MW) of new capacity
for 2019 to add to its 112-MW existing and ongoing projects this year, its top
official said.
“We’re building 20 MW
in Pangasinan… in [the municipality of] Santa Barbara,” Theresa “Techi” C.
Capellan, SunAsia president and chief executive officer, told reporters when
asked about the company’s first project for this year.
The solar farm is being
developed in partnership with Dagupan Electric Corp., one of the oldest power
distribution utilities in the country, and businessman Jose “Joey” P. De
Venecia III.
“It will be the first
in Pangasinan,” Ms. Capellan said.
SunAsia has three
existing solar farms with a capacity of 60 MW, 30 MW and 2 MW, respectively.
The latest project, which will break ground in May, will bring the company’s
total installed capacity to 112 MW by the end of the year.
For next year, SunAsia
Energy has a pipeline of 135 MW, of which 115 MW will be in Mindanao. Its
projects in Mindanao are composed of two 50-MW solar farms, and two with a
capacity of 12 MW and 3 MW, respectively.
The remaining 20 MW for
next year will be in Luzon, Ms. Capellan said.
As a rule of thumb, she
said the cost to build a megawatt of solar power has dropped to $850,000,
although the estimated price is for projects that are at least 50MW in
capacity.
For the Pangasinan
project, she said the cost would be higher at $950,000 per megawatt or a total
of $19 million. A bigger scale project, such as the two solar farms lined up
for Mindanao, will be more cost-effective for SunAsia, she said.
Ms. Capellan said
during the time that the second round of solar feed-in-tariff (FiT) was
awarded, the price per megawatt was at about $1.6 million.
The existing price
trends for solar allows new developers to price the power they produce at a
price lower than the FiT rate of P8.96 per kilowatt-hour because of their lower
development cost, the SunAsia official said.
The lowest price
offered by a new proponent has dropped to as low as P2.98 per kWh.
“Ang aking
Toledo, $1.6 million [per MW] ’yon (My Toledo project was at $1.6
million per MW),” she said.
She was referring to
the company’s 60-MW Toledo City project in Cebu, which allows co-location with
the existing livestock operations. The modules are raised off the ground to
allow small animals to roam the grazing area underneath. — Victor V. Saulon
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