DOE okays Negros solar power plant project

MANILA, Philippines - The Department of Energy (DOE) has approved a 22-megawatt solar power plant to be built inside the San Carlos Economic Zone in Negros.

The P1.9-billion power plant, so far the largest to be built in the country, is expected to be operational by the second quarter of 2014 and is targeted to add over 35 million kilowatt-hours to the Visayas grid annually.

The DOE has issued the service contract and certificate of registration for the power plant, known as the San Carlos solar energy project or SaCaSol.

In approving the project, the energy department said the power plant would help provide additional power to the Visayas grid, which is experiencing a shortage of supply and an increasing demand for energy.

All equity funding has been secured to enable the project to be constructed and put into operations, according to its proponents, Bronzeoak Philippines (BP) and the Swiss-German firm, ThomasLloyd (TL). BP is a privately owned company that specializes in the renewable energy project development, finance and management of integrated agro-energy projects in the Philippines while TL is a leading global investment banking and investment management group dedicated solely to the renewable energy and clean technology sectors.

The proponents also said the project would be developed in two phases, with the first phase comprising of 13 MW and the second phase with an additional nine MW.

It is a stand-alone solar power plant consisting of 22 inverters and approximately 88,000 photovoltaic modules to be supplied by Conergy, the project’s main contractor based in Germany, proponents also said.

SaCaSol’s goal is to provide power to the grid throughout the year, at pre-determined feed-in-tariff rates set by the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC), the power sector regulator.