December 11, 2018 | 12:05 am
SN Aboitiz Power-Magat,
Inc. expects to complete the construction of its pilot floating solar energy
system on Magat dam in the first quarter of 2019 in time for the onset of the rainy
season to test the project’s ability to withstand rough weather.
The success of the
project would decide whether the company, which is a partnership between
Aboitiz Power Corp. and SN Power of Norway, could scale up the 200-kilowatt
solar farm that will be built over a 2,500-square meter area of the reservoir.
“We’re thinking of the
next increment of investment. We’ve talked about 30 to 50 megawatts (MW) of
floating solar,” Joseph S. Yu, president and chief executive officer, said in a
briefing on Monday in Taguig City.
“This one is a pilot,
so it’s pretty expensive. It’s about $300,000 for the whole pilot [project],”
he said.
He said the company had
secured the approval of the National Irrigation Administration (NIA), the dam’s
owner, for the project.
“We’re hoping to have
it up and running maybe March, April next year,” Mr. Yu said. “We intend to
actually stress test it, so we’ll have it built just in time for the wet season
to start. We’ll see if it’s a safe harbor.”
Mr. Yu said the test
would include an evaluation on whether the floating solar system could
withstand the flow of water during a typhoon and how much power could be
generated from it.
“We’re hoping if it
works then it should be pretty scalable and then that could be a venue for us
to grow pretty rapidly if the market for renewable energy ever firms itself
up,” he said.
“A land-based solar
takes about six to eight months to build. So as long as you can iron out the
transmission, any contracting… and any permitting that you need, [if] you’ve
got all those three pieces in place, then you can expand fairly quickly,” Mr.
Yu added.
In a statement issued
during the briefing, SN Aboitiz Power quoted NIA Administrator Ricardo R.
Visaya as saying that a hectare of solar field could produce a megawatt of
power.
The government agency
said that if 200 of the 4,500 hectares of the Magat dam reservoir will be used
for water-based solar power, 200 MW will be generated and 200 hectares of
agricultural land could be saved.
SN Aboitiz Power owns
and operates the 360- to 380-MW Magat hydro on the border of Isabela and Ifugao
provinces; the 8.5-MW Maris hydro in Isabela; the 105-MW Ambuklao hydro in
Benguet; and the 140-MW Binga hydro plant in Benguet. — Victor V. Saulon
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