SP New Energy gets over 2,000 hectares for largest solar farm

By Alena Mae S. Flores – November 17, 2022, 7:50 pm
from manilastandard.net

SP New Energy Corp., a unit of Solar Philippines, said Thursday it secured over 2,000 hectares of landbank as part of preparations in building the “world’s largest solar farm” in Central Luzon.

SPNEC said it secured the properties only two months after its stock rights offering.

“We expect the updated tally to be reflected in our next quarterly report, from which our public shareholders should have a better appreciation of the assets in SPNEC,” Solar Philippines founder Leandro Leviste said.

Under SPNEC’s SRO prospectus, proceeds would be used to acquire land in Nueva Ecija and Bulacan, and it would seek projects with the highest value. This may include projects where SPNEC would own shares as part of its asset-for-share swap.

“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 said.

One of SPNEC’s projects is Terra Solar Philippines Inc., a joint venture that recently signed a power supply agreement with Manila Electric Co. Under the PSA, Terra Solar would supply 850 MW of mid-merit for around 12 hours per day from a planned 3.5-gigawatt solar plant, 4.5-gigawatt-hour battery project in Nueva Ecija and Bulacan.

The 2,000-hectare properties secured by Solar Philippines 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 GW.

This capacity would exceed the total grid-connected solar operating in the Philippines based on the Department of Energy’s latest figures as of August 2022.