On top of a 500MW system under construction on the northern Philippines island of Luzon, the listed subsidiary of PV project developer Solar Philippines plans to build another 3.5GW solar plant.
Solar Philippines claims this will make it the largest PV project in the world.
Solar Philippines Nueva Ecija Corporation (SPNEC) plans to use various financing proceeds to acquire an additional 2,500 hectares of land for this large-scale PV project cluster in Nueva Ecija and Bulacan provinces.
To raise at least PHP 10 billion, the company plans to take steps including a previously announced stock offering, a private placement with institutional investors and an asset-to-share swap plan with parent company Solar Philippines. The announcements come shortly after SPNEC debuts on the Philippine Stock Exchange in December 2021.
The cumulative capacity of the planned project is 4GW, which will surpass the current largest solar project in the world, the Bhadla solar power plant in Rajasthan, India, which has a capacity of more than 2,245MW.
Since 2016, Solar Philippines has been able to plan a project of this scale through efforts to acquire land and permits. This batch of projects will help the company to take advantage of the basic transmission facilities built for the initial 500MW plant. The power station will stretch for 60 kilometers and reach Metro Manila, one of the world's largest metropolises.
In June this year, Solar Philippines submitted an offer for power contracts for 10GW of photovoltaic power plants currently under development, with an annual contracted capacity of 9TWh. These power projects will mainly start operations in 2025 and 2026. In today's launch, Solar Philippines said it aims to complete 8GW of solar and battery projects during this period.
Meralco seeks lower prices for 200MW base load solar power
Manila Electric Power Company (Meralco) has moved to secure lower base-load supply prices for 200MW projects due to start in 2024. The project is under development and consists of a 1800MW solar project and 1800MWh battery storage project.
Solar Philippines Batangas baseload Corporation (SPBBC), a subsidiary of Solar Philippines, had previously made an active quotation for this 200MW project. When the capacity factor of the power station is 100%, the price is 4.65 Philippine pesos/kWh, which is similar to the levelized cost of electricity and has a term of 20 year.
Meralco is now inviting interested parties to submit lower offers. Interested parties must submit a letter of intent by August 31.
