Solar to achieve target capacity by next year

SOLAR PHILIPPINES Power Project Holdings, Inc. advanced by about a year the target installation date of the 2,000 megawatts (MW) the company announced when it disclosed plans last year to build a solar panel manufacturing plant in Sto. Tomas, Batangas.

“Last year, when we announced our plan to put up solar manufacturing, we gave a target in three years of 2 gigawatts (2,000 MW). We have achieved the 800 MW in 2017 and will be able to achieve the 2,000 MW one year ahead of schedule in 2018,” Solar Philippines President Leandro L. Leviste told reporters on Wednesday on the sidelines of the launch of the company’s manufacturing plant.

President Rodrigo R. Duterte inaugurated the Batangas plant, which Solar Philippines claims to have established the country as “a major player in the global renewable energy revolution.”

“Three assembly lines of 800 MW annual capacity, we have spent… mga (about) P750 million for the direct cost of the solar panel facility. However, the materials of the factory once fully operating will be around P1 billion per month,” Mr. Leviste said.

The plant, which makes solar panels accessible to the Philippines, translates into a 30% reduction in the cost of electricity, he said.

The company previously challenged the P3.50 per kilowatt-hour (kWh) price offered by a competitor to distribution utility Manila Electric Co. (Meralco).

On Wednesday, he said he could offer electricity at a price P2.99 per kWh. This compares to the P9.68/kWh subsidized rate offered by the government to early developers of solar farms in 2013 — or even the reduced P8.69/kWh rate in 2015 — under the country’s feed-in-tariff (FiT), a system that has since been discontinued for solar energy.

“We are expecting over P10 billion worth of exports to come from this factory over the next 12 months and this is first under our OEM or original equipment manufacturing contracts with Chinese suppliers, some of whom are here with us today, and secondly for our domestic projects,” Mr. Leviste said.

“For our domestic projects, we are now supplying local solar installers, hindi lang sa (not only in) Metro Manila, (but) Luzon, Visayas, Mindanao,” he said.

The current capacity of the Batangas plant will be divided among the company’s internal solar panel requirements, sale to third parties and for exports.

“Thus we estimate that we will need to put up an additional factory by mid part of next year to address all of this demand,” Mr. Leviste said.

He said the company is looking for the space to accommodate the plant expansion, and that the company needs 5 hectares more.

“But please expect 2,000 MW of manufacturing capacity in the Philippines by the middle of next year, which will make the Philippines one of the largest solar manufacturing hubs in the world. The entire United States, solar manufacturing capacity is less than the capacity that will be in this factory this year,” he said.

Mr. Leviste said the plant will create up to 50,000 jobs for the solar industry — from manufacturing to installation. Solar Philippines entered solar manufacturing after a US solar company closed two of its factories in the country. — Victor V. Saulon