The largest solar company in Southeast Asia, Solar Philippines, finally announced the submission of offers towards contracting a majority of its 10 gigawatts of projects in the country. This will be the world's largest solar power facility when completed.
If an approval is granted, Solar Philippines would possess 9 terrawatt-hours a year of contracted energy and will be able to use most of the targeted capacity by 2025 and 2026.
The main reason for the Philippines to launch this initiative on such a grand scale is because the country is planning to meet 'the rising demand' of electricity by ditching coal. Last year, coal accounted for 47.6 per cent of the total electricity generated in the Southeast Asian country.
The company is basically planning to build a solar farm that will generate 2500 megawatts to 3500 megawatts of electricity, which may cost around $3 billion, The Straits Times reported.
The initiative has two important objectives as per the company's President Leandro Leviste. The first is that it would contribute towards addressing Philippines 'potential power shortage.' The second will be to magnify the country's grid-connected solar capacity of 1,127 megawatts by the end of this year.
According to Forbes Asia, billionaire Enrique Razon is playing an extremely important role in ensuring the success of the initiative, as his company Prime Infrastructure Holdings has partnered with Solar Philippines. This partnership goes beyond investments and is concentrating towards identifying prospective sites for the project in northern and southern Luzon.
The project is believed to hold 3.5 gigawatts of solar and 4.5 gigawatts-hours of battery storage and is expected to be two times the current solar capacity of Philippines.
