Solar Philippines said over the weekend it formed a new business called Solar Energy Zones Inc. that will be independent from the group’s power plant business and cater to the demand for solar project sites of other players.
The company said it was finalizing agreements for 10,000 hectares, mostly near its projects in the provinces of Batangas, Tarlac and Nueva Ecija.
“Our aim is no longer to compete with the country’s power companies, but to enable them to build projects, to ensure that solar soon becomes the largest source of new energy in the Philippines,” said Solar Philippines founder Leandro Leviste in a statement.
“The problem we need to solve is that, despite there now being significant demand for new solar plants, there is a scarcity of sites. Our SEZ’s will make it easy for any of these power companies that decide to build solar to locate in these zones and start construction that same year,” Leviste said.
The company’s SEZs are inspired by the solar parks of India, where companies co-locate solar projects in large shovel-ready sites with common facilities that benefit from economies of scale. The model is helping India lower solar’s barriers to entry and become one of the world’s fastest-growing solar markets.
The SEZs will be under a combination of lease and joint venture agreements.
“This would not be possible had we not begun the development of these sites six years ago, when others did not believe that large-scale solar would be viable. Now the power industry is convinced that it is, we are making available these sites to help others enter the market,” Leviste said.
Solar Philippines will announce over the coming months several projects to be constructed in its zones by other power companies over the next five years.
It said the capacity of these projects would be multiple times greater than the country’s total solar output to date, making solar a major contributor to the country’s energy mix.
Solar Philippines announced a 500-megawatt solar project from a single development that would augment the country’s need for additional capacity.
Wholly-owned subsidiary Solar Philippines Nueva Ecija Corp. is gearing up to build the project’s first 225 MW, which will be the largest in the Philippines to date.
