PH solar power plants among Southeast Asia’s top 25

Philippine facilities occupy 10 slots in Southeast Asia’s top 25 operational solar power plants, and electricity produced from this technology is expected to triple in four years, according to Dutch firm Solarplaza.

The Rotterdam-based consultancy said in a report that grid-connected solar power capacity in the Philippines was expected to more than triple from 903 megawatts currently to 3 gigawatts by 2022.

Rivaling the Philippines is Thailand with 15 solar facilities in the list. The remaining two are located in Malaysia and Cambodia.

No. 1 in Solarplaza’s list is 132.5-MW Cadiz solar power plant in Negros Occidental. Owned by the Equis Fund Group, this went online in 2016 and is the biggest in Southeast Asia.

Other Philippine solar plants listed by Solarplaza are the 80-MW San Carlos Solar Energy plant (ranked 8th); 63-MW Solar Philippines plant in Calatagan, Batangas (9th) ; 59-MW Toledo project of Citicore Power in Cebu (10th), and 59-MW San Carlos Sun Power plant in Negros Occidental (11th).

There are also the 50-MW plant of Sulu Electric Power and Light in Leyte (12th); 50-MW plant of Syntegra Solar and Conergy in Tarlac (13th); 45-MW plant of San Carlos Solar Energy in San Carlos City (14th); 40-MW plant of Majestics energy Corp. and Mother Co. in Cavite (16th); and 22-MW plant of Mabalacat Solar Philippines in Pampanga.

“The Philippines has enjoyed large growth in PV (photovoltaic) installations in the past few years, with more than 881 MW of newly added capacity installed since 2014,” Solarplaza said.

“This was mainly the result of the introduction of the country’s initial feed-in-tariff (FiT) of $0.23 per kilowatt-hour in 2014 and its subsequent revision to $0.17 per kWh in 2017,” the group added.

In an earlier report, Solarplaza put the Philippines at No. 5 among developing countries in Asia in terms of the use of solar photovoltaic systems for electricity generation.