Sun Asia to build Pangasinan solar farm

SOLAR FARM developer Sun Asia Energy, Inc. has lined up a total of 135 megawatts (MW) of new capacity for 2019 to add to its 112MW existing and ongoing projects this year, its top official said.

“We’re building 20 MW in Pangasinan… in [the municipality of ] Santa Barbara,” Theresa “Techi” C. Capellan, Sun Asia president and chief executive officer, told reporters when asked about the company’s first project for this year.

The solar farm is being developed in partnership with Dagupan Electric Corp., one of the oldest power distribution utilities in the country, and businessman Jose “Joey” P. De Venecia III.

“It will be the first in Pangasinan,” Ms. Capellan said.

Sun Asia has three existing solar farms with a capacity of 60 MW, 30 MW and 2 MW, respectively. The latest project, which will break ground in May, will bring the company’s total installed capacity to 112 MW by the end of the year.

For next year, Sun Asia Energy has a pipeline of 135 MW, of which 115 MW will be in Mindanao. Its projects in Mindanao are composed of two 50-MW solar farms, and two with a capacity of 12 MW and 3 MW, respectively.

The remaining 20 MW for next year will be in Luzon, Ms. Capellan said.

As a rule of thumb, she said the cost to build a megawatt of solar power has dropped to $850,000, although the estimated price is for projects that are at least 50MW in capacity.

For the Pangasinan project, she said the cost would be higher at $ 950,000 per megawatt or a total of $19 million. A bigger scale project, such as the two solar farms lined up for Mindanao, will be more cost-effective for Sun Asia, she said.

Ms. Capellan said during the time that the second round of solar feed-in-tariff (FiT) was awarded, the price per megawatt was at about $1.6 million.

The existing price trends for solar allows new developers to price the power they produce at a price lower than the FiT rate of P8.96 per kilowatt-hour because of their lower development cost, the Sun Asia official said.

The lowest price offered by a new proponent has dropped to as low as P2.98 per kWh.

“Ang aking Toledo, $1.6 million [per MW] ’yon (My Toledo project was at $1.6 million per MW),” she said.

She was referring to the company’s 60-MW Toledo City project in Cebu, which allows co-location with the existing livestock operations. The modules are raised off the ground to allow small animals to roam the grazing area underneath. —