The new plants will be built on the island of Negros in the Philippines, for San Carlos Solar Energy, Inc. (SaCaSol), a joint venture between European-based investment and advisory firm, ThomasLloyd and Bronzeoak Philippines.
The first project, SaCaSol I C/D, involves the expansion of the Philippines’ first large solar plant SaCaSol I A/B, located close to the port of San Carlos City, which was built by Conergy for SaCaSol and opened by President Benigno Simeon Aquino in May. The capacity of SaCaSol I will be increased by 23MWp to 45MWp – enough to supply 27,300 homes in the local area.
The second project, SaCaSol II A, will be a completely new 18MWp solar power plant close to La Carlota City on Negros’s west coast, which will supply an estimated 26,529 megawatt hours of electricity to the grid annually, enough for 11,000 homes, avoiding 16,200 tons of carbon emissions per year. They are scheduled for completion and grid connection in June 2015, at which time Conergy will provide technical and consultancy services for the plants’ ongoing operation and maintenance together with a local service contractor.
"We are encouraged by increasing recognition for solar in the Philippines with more developers and sponsors ramping up investments to meet a growing demand for power,” said Alexander Lenz, president of Conergy Asia & Middle East. “These projects with SaCaSol will triple the Philippines’ solar capacity and underscore the technology’s rapidly-improving economics.”
REFERENCES
- The Philippines is rapidly increasing energy generation in order to reduce electricity prices, which are the fifth highest in the world. Electricity market data indicate that average spot electricity prices decline as solar power generation increases, due to reduced consumption of expensive diesel. Yields from solar panels in the Philippines are roughly equivalent to those in Miami or Cairo. The Philippines government is therefore supporting solar through a feed-in-tariff of 0.21 USD / 0.17 Euros per kWh of grid-connected PV.