Philippines' Department of Energy (DOE) has awarded the contract to build 610.5 MW floating solar PV capacity to a partnership of local Filipino company SunAsia Energy Inc and Macquarie's Green Investment Group (GIG) portfolio company Blueleaf Energy which the latter calls the world's largest such facility.
Blueleaf says this capacity will be installed on Laguna Lake and will span the growing cities of Calama, Sta Rosa and Cabuyao, and the towns of Bay and Victoria. It is the first set of solar energy operating contracts (SEOC) for a total of 1.3 GW floating solar projects awarded by the department.
SunAsia has been operating a testbed on Laguna Lake to study the behavior of waves, wind, sun intensity and the local temperatures since 2019. It now sees this experience to come in handy to deploy floating solar panels on a large scale now.
"There is a strong incentive to build on water as the Philippines gears up for an ambitious 46 GW solar energy installations in 2040 and at the same time, increase power supply in the country," said SunAsia President and CEO Tetchi Capellan.
SunAsia and Blueleaf announced a partnership for 1.25 GW solar PV development in Philippines in June 2021 (see 1.25 GW Solar PV Partnership For Philippines).
The DOE has awarded this capacity as 6 SEOC with 25-year operating period each. It believes this represents an additional strategic investment to strengthen the country's renewable energy sector and promotes commercialization of floating solar as an emerging technology.
The agency counts having awarded 1.282 GW or 237 solar energy contracts and potential capacity of 21.45 GW to date, representing PHP 8.46 billion ($152 million) investments.
Philippines has an official target to install 18 GW of solar capacity by 2030 which climate think tank Ember believes will be achieved since Solar Philippines alone targets to exceed over 10 GW solar by 2025 in the country (see Expect 'Exponential' Solar Growth Across 5 Asian Nations).
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