Water rights, tech barriers hinder development of floating solar farms

MANILA, Philippines — Water rights and technological limitations remain major stumbling blocks for developers to put up floating solar projects in the country, according to an industry player.

During The Future Energy Show Philippines 2021, SN Aboitiz Power (SNAP) Group vice president and chief business development officer Jason Soberano said putting up floating solar projects in the country is very challenging due to the requirement of exclusive water rights and technological limits.

“It’s really a combination of those things and that sort of pushes back and makes it more difficult. There’s a lot of birth pains,” he said.

Before one can apply and secure a service contract, a developer needs to show exclusive water rights over the area of the proposed floating solar project.

However, most of the available water surface ideal for floating solar are owned by government.

“I’m seeing this challenge in one of our developments and other developers when they’re doing the floating solar with the Laguna Lake Development Authority (LLDA),” Soberano said.

The LLDA, which has jurisdiction over the lake basin’s surface water, can only start receiving applications from interested parties to put up floating solar facilities once the implementing rules and regulations (IRR) are out.

The LLDA board executive committee was tentatively scheduled to deliberate on the proposed IRR for floating solar plants in Laguna de Bay last month.

Once approved by the LLDA board executive committee, the IRR will be elevated to the LLDA board of directors.

“They’ve been negotiating back and forth in terms of tenor, on how long LLDA would give them rights, what the rates would be…you can’t hinge it on a particular rate because there’s no precedent,” Soberano said.

For dams, the SNAP official said the water rights are not owned by developers and are owned by government.

“There’s a lot of this back-and-forth negotiations and talks, and that pushes back the timelines,” Soberano said.

But once the IRR is out, AC Energy Corp. (ACEN) said it sees a promising floating solar industry to raise the country’s renewable energy capacity.

“Floating solar is really something that will expand the potential capacity in the Philippines. There’s a lot of potential. Laguna Lake, for example, is a great location,” ACEN president and CEO Eric Francia said in a webinar last month.

In fact, ACEN is among the companies that have expressed interest to develop floating solar over the Laguna Lake.

Puno & Puno Law Offices senior partner Jose Layug Jr. said there is a potential of about 5,000 hectares out of the 90,000-hectare surface area of Laguna Lake that can be used for floating solar projects.

Meanwhile, the capability of floating solar to withstand typhoons is still a question especially since the country is visited by several typhoons in a year.

“On the technical side, the Philippines is a typhoon prone country. I would say there have been few floating solar plants that are directly hit by typhoons. It’s not 100 percent that the technology is proven,” Soberano said.

He cited a floating solar project of a technology provider in Albania, which were damaged after a typhoon hit the area.

In its report last year, global research firm Institute for Energy Economic and Financial Analysis said the Philippines has the potential to build 11 gigawatts of floating solar from just from five percent of its water surface, which could power up to 7.2 million households.

SNAP, a joint venture between Aboitiz Power Corp. and Norway-based Scatec Solar, is working on scaling up its floating solar portfolio after its pilot project proved to be viable both technically and commercially.

The company switched on its first 200-kilowatt floating solar project over Magat Dam, its first non-hydro RE project, in June 2019. The 200-kw facility provides internal power to SNAP-Magat’s facilities.

Because of the pilot project’s success, the SNAP board approved to proceed to engineering design for a floating solar plant with up to 67 MW in capacity.

The company is now conducting a feasibility study to validate the initial results and confirm the viability of a commercial-scale project. The FS phase is expected to run for about 10 to 12 months, Yu said.