BY JOHN MAEBEL SALVADOR
Friday, October 8, 2021
The Philippines is set to go green and commit to climate change and build a solar park in Nueva Ecija. Solar Philippines will be hosting this solar project along with projects that will be planned in Batangas and Tarlac. The 10 000 hectares project will be one of the largest to be ever done in the country and in Southeast Asia. This project will significantly boost the country’s renewable energy resources.
"The company is currently finalizing agreements for 10,000 hectares, mostly near its existing projects in Batangas, Tarlac, and Nueva Ecija," said the Solar Energy Zones Inc. (SEZ) in a statement over the weekend.
The solar farm is to be producing 500 – megawatt (MW), with the first phase of the project expecting to produce 225 MW. The solar project’s output can be sold to the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market during the sunniest hours when demand is highest.
"This will supplement Luzon grid's thin reserves and help prevent the rotating outages that have affected millions of Filipinos over the past weeks," the firm said in a statement.
Furthermore, this project will provide people in the countryside work and opportunities over 5000 jobsduring construction and over 500 jobs during operations, will be provided in support of government efforts to create opportunities for people living in the
countryside.
"When we began developing this project in 2016, others didn't believe that large-scale solar would be viable. Because we made this bet then, we now have projects ready to meet the country's gap in power supply," said Solar Philippines founder Leandro Leviste.
"This is representative of the rest of our pipeline of projects, which were not viable historically, but are viable today with the lower cost of solar and storage. On the other hand, if we started development only now, it would already be too late," he added.
This project will be good news to many people in the Philippines who are concerned not only in the power outage and shortage they experience but also to people who are concerned for the conservation and protection of our environment. Furthermore, to accelerate the implementation and development of various solar projects in the country, Solar Philippines shifted its strategy from competing with others in the power industry to collaborating with several local and foreign conglomerates
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