Solar Philippines enters India market

SOLAR PHILIPPINES Power Project Holdings, Inc. has entered the renewable energy sector in India with the construction of a 500-megawatt (MW) solar farm, its top official said.

“We already have our first project in India,” Leandro L. Leviste, president of Solar Philippines, told reporters last week, but declined to give details because of the issues faced by his proposed minigrid franchise in the Philippines.

“Ayaw lang namin guluhin ang kuwento (We just don’t want to muddle the story),” he said, when asked to elaborate. “But this year we’ll have around 500 MW of projects in India.”

Mr. Leviste first disclosed in May last year his company’s plan to venture in India, which he described as having a favorable regulatory environment.

Asked about his company’s partner in India, he said: “We don’t do partnerships in India. The beauty of India is the very low barrier to entry to develop gridconnected power projects in solar parks, as what they are called, with land and transmission provided by the government.”

“So any company in the world, with no local ownership condition can come in and bill P2.00 per kilowatthour (kWh), and basta P2.00/kWh makakakuha ka

ng kontrata (as long as it is P2.00/kWh, you’ll get a contract),” he added.

Mr. Leviste had said the solar power rates in India are in the range of P2 to P3/kWh, although the capacity at stake is in thousands of megawatts. That range compares to the P2.34 per kWh offered by his company to distribution utility Manila Electric Co.

“In the last tenders of India, they awarded more than a thousand megawatts to just one company in one go. So we’re hopeful that by bringing the cost of solar energy down to India levels in the Philippines, we’ll be able to convince utilities and policymakers to unlock that same volume,” he said in a previous interview. —