BY PRINCE GOLEZ
Manila Reporter
NEGROS OCCIDENTAL – The 22-megawatt (MW) solar farm in San Carlos City inaugurated by President Benigno Aquino III yesterday is the country’s first large-scale, commercially-financed and -commissioned solar power plant.
According to the President, the solar farm of San Carlos Solar Energy, Inc. (SaCaSol) is expected to improve the country’s energy security and make the Philippines more attractive to investors.
He appealed for more investments in renewable energy amid a tight power supply that continues to plague the country.
Energy sources should be “managed” to lower electricity prices, the President stressed.
The P1.9-billion joint project by Thomas Lloyd Group and Bronzeoak Philippines, Inc., Aquino underscored, can reduce extreme risks posed by climate change.
“(With) this new project, the Visayas grid will benefit from an additional 22 megawatts. It displaces carbon emissions equivalent to the emissions produced by 14,805 tons of oil for each year of operations,” explained Aquino.
Only the 13 MW first phase of the project was inaugurated yesterday.
The second phase of the project, Phase 1B, consists of a nine-MW facility.
Once complete, San Carlos Solar farm is expected to supply 35-million kilowatt hour of energy to the Visayas grid and to cover mainly the power needs of Negros Occidental, Negros Oriental, Cebu, and Iloilo.
“Investments like this are what our country needs,” Aquino stressed as he drew cheers from the crowd.
Aquino led the inauguration with Sen. Loren Legarda, Local Government Secretary Mar Roxas, Energy Secretary Jericho Petilla and Public Works Secretary Rogelio Singson.
Legarda raised the possibility of such project to be replicated in Mindanao where power cuts continue to hit various parts of the region.
“We need to increase our renewable energy installation targets and make renewable energy part of the solution to the country’s growing energy demand,” said Legarda who chairs the Senate committee on climate change.
The senator from Antique said using renewable energy is a “long-term solution to the global effort to avert and mitigate the effects of climate change and the impacts of our expanding energy use.”
The new solar plant generated some 3,000 jobs in the province, Legarda also said./PN
