Solar power plant to rise in Ormoc City

ORMOC CITY, Philippines – This city may soon become the renewable energy capital of Southeast Asia.

This, after city and provincial officials approved the plan of Korean investors to build a $72-million (roughly P2.9-billion) solar power plant in the upland village of Dolores – touted to be the biggest of its kind in Southeast Asia.

Recently, Young Soon, chief operations officer of Philippine Solar Farm-Leyte Inc., said his company was securing a permit from the Department of Energy to put up a 30-megawatt solar power plant on a 44-hectare area in Barangay Dolores.

Young said they would get financing from the Korea Development Bank Daewoo Security Co.

“If everything goes as planned, construction of the plant will begin in July or August, so it can become operational by the first quarter next year,” Young said.

The Korean investors picked Ormoc City as site of the solar plant because of the convenience of connecting to the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines as well as the area’s rolling terrain which is suitable for the plant’s structures which could serve as tourist attraction.