SPNEC acquires land for world’s largest solar farm

SOLAR Philippines unit SP New Energy Corp. (SPNEC) has secured over 2,000 hectares of land for what it plans to be the world’s largest solar farm.

At over 2,000 hectares, the company’s land bank could fit a project that would exceed the capacity of India’s Bhadla Solar Farm, currently the world’s largest solar farm at over 2.2 gigawatts (GW). It may also exceed the current capacity of the total gridconnected solar plants operating in the country today.

This development came two months after SPNEC’s P2.8-billion stock rights offering (SRO), which was fully subscribed by shareholders last September.

In a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange, Solar Philippines founder Leandro Leviste said the company was eyeing the updated tally of SPNEC’s assets “to be reflected in our next quarterly report.”

“Since our SRO, we have prioritized the execution of the project that we see has the highest value. After we perfect the documentation for these hundreds of parcels and then conversion, this land would be ready for a solar project. Our focus now is to realize the value from this, and we will provide further updates at the appropriate time,” Leviste added.

SPNEC earlier said that SRO proceeds would be used to acquire land in Nueva Ecija and Bulacan, and that it would seek the use that would give it the highest value. This may include being utilized by projects that SPNEC would own shares in as part of its asset-for-share swap.

SPNEC, the largest solar energy provider in the Philippines, earlier said it is aiming to complete the development of 10 GW of power projects by 2025.