Solar Philippines closes deals for over 60% of its planned RE

SOLAR Philippines Power Project Holdings, Inc. was able to forge contracts for at least 60% of the 10 gigawatts (GW) of energy capacity that it plans to sell to off-takers or buyers, the company said on Tuesday.

“When we began talking about 10 GW, many were in disbelief, because the total installed solar capacity of the Philippines last year was just over 1.1 GW. But we hope that having contracts for the majority of 10 GW has now made this plausible,” Solar Philippines founder Leandro Antonio L. Leviste said in a press release.

The new off-take agreements came from the winning bids submitted by Solar Philippines when the Energy department auctioned 2,000 megawatts (MW) of renewable energy (RE) capacity. Auction winners are those that offered the lowest price for their RE output.

Solar Philippines said that it had won 70% of the auctioned renewable energy capacity — or 1,380 MW of the total 1,967 MW successfully bid out, including 1,350 MW or 91% of the 1,490 MW solar capacity that was bid out.

“We were fortunate to have been at the right place at the right time, developing these projects since 2016. Now, we have contracted this capacity,” Mr. Leviste said, adding that his group is looking forward to working with other companies and stakeholders to deliver the projects and “help achieve our country’s targets for renewable energy.”

Part of the contracted capacity will come from the first 500 MW being developed by Solar Philippines Nueva Ecija Corp. (SPNEC). The rest will come from projects under entities that would be owned by SPNEC after an asset-for-share swap with its parent firm.

Included in the swap deal are projects with a total 1.8 GW planned capacity, namely: the 400-MW Tarlac-2 solar farm; the 800-MW Quezon solar farm; the 400-MW Leyte solar farm; and the 200-MW General Santos solar farm.

Solar Philippines said the over 6 GW (6,000 MW) of RE capacity that it was able to find off-takers includes the 3.5-GW solar with a 4.5-GW-hours battery storage system that will be supplied to Manila Electric Co.’s (Meralco) 850-MW requirement.

The deal with Meralco is through Terra Solar Philippines, Inc., a joint venture between Solar Philippines and Razon-led Prime Infrastructure Holdings, Inc.

Solar Philippines added that another 200 MW of projects are contracted to Meralco while more than 175 MW of capacity is already operational.

It said it would disclose one more power supply offer that would complete its potentially 9 terawatt-hours (9,000 GWh) per year of contracted energy.

It said the energy supply would serve as a “critical mass of demand” for its 10 GW of RE projects that are set to start operations mostly between 2025 and 2026. It said energy that remains uncontracted may be sold into the electricity spot market. — Victor V. Saulon