PRIME Solar Solutions Corp., a subsidiary of Razon-led Prime Infrastructure Capital, Inc. (Prime Infra), is exploring the possibility of venturing into floating solar projects, leveraging the water assets owned by its parent company.

“We’re considering floating solar (projects); It’s a very good type of solar system,” Prime Infra President and Chief Executive Officer Guillaume Lucci said on the sidelines of the inauguration of a solar power plant in Batangas last week.

“It all comes down to economics and grid access, and so on and so forth. But we’re absolutely open to floating solar, and we strongly support it,” he added.

Mr. Lucci said that the company is evaluating the possibility of constructing additional solar power plants following the inauguration of Prime Solar’s 64-megawatt (MW) Tanauan solar power plant.

In addition to Prime Solar’s two solar power plants, one in Tanauan, Batangas, and one in Maragondon, Cavite, which have a combined capacity of 128 MW, he said that the company plans to add 10-12 MW to each of the facilities.

He also said that the additional capacities “will happen within the calendar year,” and that the company is “already working on it.”

Last week, Prime Infra announced that its two pump projects, valued at $7.6 billion (P444 billion), had been certified by the Department of Energy as “energy projects of national significance,” qualifying it for expedited permit processing.

The Pakil Pumped Storage Power Project is under Prime Infra’s wholly owned subsidiary Ahunan Power, Inc. with a project investment amounting to $5.03 billion.

It will have a storage capacity of 14,000 megawatt-hours (MWh) daily and a generating output capacity of 1,400 MW.

The Wawa Pumped Storage Project is being developed by Olympia Violago Water Power, Inc., another subsidiary of Prime Infra.

The project has an investment worth $2.57 billion and will have a storage capacity of 6,000 MWh per day and a generating unit capacity of 600 MW. — Sheldeen Joy Talavera